m  MEMOEEAM 
Charles    Josselyn 


fs^::h. 


BEYOND  THE 
BORDERLINE  OF  LIFE 

BY 
GUSTAVUS  MYERS 


A  summing  up  of  the  results  of  the  scientific  investigation  of 

Psychic  Phenomena,  with  an  account  of  Professor  Botazzi's 

experiments  with  Eusapia  Paiadino,  and  an  abstract 

of  the  report  of  the  cross-references  by  Mrs.  Piper, 

Mrs.  Verrall  and  others  which  so  influenced 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  in  his  decision  in 

favor  of  the  spiritistic  hypothesis 


w 


BOSTON 
THE  BALL  PUBLISHING  CO. 

1910 


\.0}2^ 


EDUC, 

PSYCH. 

UBBABS 


Copyright,  1910 
By  The  Ball  Publishing  Company 


BEYOND    THE 
BORDERLINE    OF    LIFE 


"7 


BEYOND   THE  BORDERLINE 
OF    LIFE 


'T^HE  most  significant,  far-reaching, 
revolutionary  event  that  has  ever 
taken  place  in  scientific  circles — an  event 
of  unparalleled  importance  to  the  entire 
human  race — is  the  recent  defection,  one 
after  the  other,  of  at  least  thirty-five  of 
the  world's  most  illustrious  scientists, 
from  the  materialistic  school  of  philos- 
ophy, evidenced  by  their  declarations 
that  a  variety  of  attested  phenomena 
prove  that  there  are  invisible  forces 
about  us,  of  which  they  previously  had 
been  unaware. 

7 


8  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

While  all  these  men  do  not  agree  as  to 
absolute  conclusions,  they  are  a  unit  on 
one  point,  which  is  that  they  no  longer 
believe,  as  they  had  thought  and  taught 
for  years,  that  physical  death  ended  our 
life.  They  are  also  unanimous  in  assert- 
ing the  indisputable  fact  of  the  phenom- 
ena known  as  psychic;  although  some  of 
them  have  different  interpretations  from 
others,  all  of  them  now  concede  these 
phenomena  to  be  scientifically  estab- 
lished. 

Yet,  until  very  recently  all  of  these  sci- 
entists had  been  bitter  skeptics  of  psychic 
phenomena;  in  fact,  had  vigorously  de- 
nied their  existence.  Every  one  of  them 
was,  in  his  sphere  of  science,  a  leading 
exponent  of  the  materialistic  dogma  that 
our  life  ended  in  annihilation  and  that 
our  consciousness  was  buried  in  the 
grave.     But   the  whole   teachings   of   a 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  Q 

lifetime  they  have  been  compelled  to  re- 
verse, a  very  extraordinary  transforma- 
tion of  modern  scientific  thought,  which 
is  pregnant  with  a  new  message  to  man- 
kind. 

An  equally  remarkable  fact,  which  ap- 
parently has  thus  far  escaped  attention, 
is  that,  among  all  the  great  scientists, 
only  one  remains  who  still  adheres  to  the 
doctrine  that  our  life  is  a  purely  mate- 
rial one  terminating  in  destruction  by 
bodily  death.  This  lone  exception  is 
Haeckel,  the  eminent  German  savant. 
His  associates  in  the  world  of  science, 
and  even  his  collaborators,  have  aban- 
doned his  ideas  and  theories,  which  they 
now  regard  as  obsolete  and  as  shattered 
by  the  proofs  investigated  by  them. 

There  is  no  greater  psychologist  in  the 
world  than  Enrico  Morselli,  for  twenty- 
seven  years  professor  of  psychology  in 


10         Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

the  University  of  Genoa.  He  shares 
with  Professor  William  James,  of  Har- 
vard, the  distinction  of  being  one  of  the 
very  few  of  the  world's  consummate  mas- 
ters of  that  department  of  science.  Nor 
are  there  any  names  more  authoritative  in 
the  various  quarters  of  science  than  those 
of  Filippo  Botazzi,  director  of  the 
Physiological  Institute  at  the  University 
of  Naples  and  one  of  the  foremost  of 
European  biologists;  Professor  Schia- 
parelli,  the  famous  astronomer  who  dis- 
covered the  canals  on  Mars;  Pio  Foa, 
professor  of  pathological  anatomy  at  the 
University  of  Turin,  a  scientist  who  has 
a  unique  popularity  and  influence;  Pro- 
fessor Mosso,  whose  works  on  fatigue 
and  other  physiological  subjects  are  uni- 
versally regarded  as  classics;  Camille 
Flammarion,  director  of  the  astronom- 
ical observatory,  Juvisy,  France,  who  has 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  11 

done  so  much  to  popularize  astronomy; 
Charles  Richet,  professor  of  physiology, 
in  the  University  of  Paris;  Pierre  Janet, 
another  French  scientific  luminary; 
Lombroso,  whose  brilliant  volumes  on 
criminology  have  caused  great  discus- 
sion; and  the  distinguished  German  sa- 
vant, now  of  the  Institut  General  Psy- 
chologique  of  Paris,  Julien  Ochorowicz. 
All  of  these  scientists,  after  an  entire 
career  of  indifference,  severe  doubt,  or 
intense  antagonism  to  psychic  phenom- 
ena, have  completely  changed  front,  and 
now  fully  admit  the  presence  about  us  of 
invisible  forces  hitherto  unknown,  giving 
voluminous  reasons  for  their  conversion. 
"^  Many  other  scientists,  after  experi- 
ments and  investigations,  have  joined 
them.  A  few  of  these  are  Galeotti,  pro- 
fessor of  general  pathology  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Naples;  Luciani,  de  Amicis, 


12         Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Bianchi,  Patrizi,  Murani,  Queirolo, 
Gigli,  Vizioli,  Scarpa,  Pansini,  Tambu- 
rini,  Tassi,  Ascensi,  Lombardi,  Porro, 
Limoncelli,  d'Enrico,  Virgilio,  Venzano, 
Ottolenghi,  and  many  others  too  numer- 
ous even  to  mention,  all  of  them  promi- 
nent professors  in  the  various  universities 
of  Italy,  and  for  the  most  part,  psychia- 
trists and  psychologists.  The  whole 
corps  of  Morselli's  assistants  have  like- 
wise discarded  their  former  materialist 
beliefs,  as  also  have  Mosso's  well-known 
aids,  Herlitzka,  Charles  Foa,  and  Agga- 
zoti. 

The  continued  former  hostile  position 
of  practically  all  of  these  men  may  be 
judged  by  Morselli's  recent  pronounce- 
ment of  his  recognition  of  psychic  phe- 
nomena. 'T  was  myself  for  many  years," 
he  writes,  "from  the  commencement  of 
my  scientific  career  at  the  age  of  seven- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  13 

teen,  not  only  an  inveterate  and  irre- 
claimable 'anti-spiritist,'  with  regard  to 
the  hypothesis  of  survival  and  interven- 
tion of  the  defunct,  or  other  occult  enti- 
ties, .  .  .  but  I  was  also  a  bitter 
skeptic  with  regard  to  the  objective  real- 
ity of  the  phenomena  themselves,  with 
respect  to  the  existence  of  new  'forces,' 
different  from  the  physico-chemical  ones 
and  from  the  known  bio-psychical  activ- 
ities. .  .  .  To-day,  furnished  with 
an  experience  perhaps  sufficient,  after 
long  and  mature  reflection  on  what  I 
have  seen  and  touched  with  my  hand, 
after  having  studied  the  question  of  me- 
diumship  indefatigably  for  years,  I  have 
changed  my  belief.  The  result  is  that  I 
can  no  longer  deny  the  reality  and  genu- 
ineness of  the  greater  part  of  these  phe- 
nomena, which,  at  first,  I  held  to  be 
purely  imaginary." 


14         Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Pio  Foa  likewise  publicly  stated  his 
altered  views  in  a  memorable  address  de- 
livered recently  in  Turin.  The  absorb- 
ing interest  shown  by  the  general  Euro- 
pean public  in  the  revolution  of  scientific 
thought  was  demonstrated  by  the  num- 
ber of  persons  in  the  audience.  "The 
theatre  was  crowded/'  says  La  Stampa, 
"and  what  a  public!  Ladies  of  the  aris- 
tocracy and  of  the  upper  as  well  as  of 
the  middle  classes,  professors,  doctors, 
lawyers,  engineers,  merchants,  workmen, 
and  a  large  number  of  university  stu- 
dents. The  Duke  of  Genoa  and  the 
Duke  of  Abruzzi  were  present  in  their 
respective  boxes.  Many  people  had  to 
be  turned  away.  When  at  nine  o'clock 
the  lecturer  came  on  the  platform,  he 
was  received  by  prolonged  and  deafen- 
ing applause.  The  public  listened  in  ab- 
solute silence  when  the  lecturer  began  to 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life         15 

speak  in  his  well-known,  easy,  simple, 
and  communicative  style,  which  is  one 
of  the  characteristic  features  of  his  ora- 
tory, the  secret  by  means  of  which  Pro- 
fessor Foa  always  draws  such  large  audi- 
ences, not  only  from  among  persons  given 
to  study  of  scientific  subjects,  but  also 
from  the  general  public." 

After  giving  a  clear  exposition  of  the 
philosophy  of  the  subject,  and  the  pro- 
longed doubt,  mistrust,  prejudice,  and 
criticism  met  with,  he  described  in  de- 
tail the  marvelous  phenomena  which  he 
and  many  other  scientists  had  seen  and 
tested,  and  included  this  statement,  all 
the  more  worthy  of  consideration  com- 
ing from  so  conservative  a  scientist  as  he: 
"We  can  affirm  without  exaggeration 
that  the  greatest  progress  made  by  con- 
temporary science  has  been  but  the  au- 
daciously progressive  conquest  into  the 


l6         Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

region  of  the  ultra-sensible,  the  ultra- 
visible,  and  the  ultra-ponderable.  Be- 
yond what  the  eye  can  see,  what  the  ear 
can  hear,  what  the  hand  can  touch,  be- 
yond the  world  of  taste  and  smell  and  of 
'  all  the  other  senses,  there  exists  a  world 
invisible,  inaudible,  impalpable,  of 
which  we  know  only  a  few  manifesta- 
tions." 

The  same  radical  change  of  opinion  is 
expressed  by  Botazzi  in  his  "The  Unex- 
plored Regions  of  Human  Biology" — a 
work  which  when  issued  in  book  form, 
as  it  will  be  shortly^  will  claim  a  world- 
wide interest.  He  starts  out  by  saying: 
''I  was,  I  scarcely  know  whether  I 
should  say,  incredulous  or  indifferent 
with  regard  to  mediumistic  phenomena 
.  .  .  I  was  more  disposed  to  deny 
the  truth  of  those  phenomena  than  to  ac- 
cept them."     Proceeding  then  to  narrate 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  17 

the  fullest  and  most  specific  details  of 
these  various  phenomena  as  seen  and 
tested  by  him,  he  concludes:  "From 
henceforward,  skeptics  can  only  deny  the 
facts  by  accusing  us  of  fraud  and  charla- 
tanism. I  should  be  very  much  sur- 
prised if  anyone  w^ere  bold  enough  to 
bring  this  accusation  against  us,  but  it 
should  not  disturb  our  minds  in  the 
least." 

These  foregoing  citations  instance  how 
the  leading  scientific  thought  of  the  time 
has  entirely  changed.  This  change  car- 
ries with  it  three  very  remarkable  aspects. 

One  is  that  it  must  inevitably  have  the 
profoundest  effect  upon  all  conduct,  laws, 
religions,  institutions,  and  peoples.  If 
there  is  a  life  beyond  this,  a  continuation 
of  consciousness,  a  survival  of  that  mys- 
terious thing  which  we  call  intelligence, 
spirit,  or  soul,  then  the  human  race,  once 


18         Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

it  realizes  the  truth  of  this,  will  be  com- 
pelled by  its  own  moral,  ethical,  and 
spiritual  growth,  to  make  its  earthly  ex- 
istence conform  to  the  cognition  of  an 
^'hereafter." 

Another  is  that  for  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  man  science  has  arrived  at  the 
point  of  asserting  that  the  continuity  of 
the  soul  or  intelligence  is  being  demon- 
strated by  scientific  tests.  Hitherto  a 
belief  in  "a  life  beyond"  has  been  the 
possession  of  religions  only  from  the 
most  primitive  tribes  to  the  present  civil- 
izations. It  has  until  now,  however,  ap- 
parently remained  merely  a  belief 
without  knowledge,  nothing  more.  No 
scientific  proof  was  adduced  that  the 
spirit,  which  guided  the  body,  did  not 
die  with  the  body;  to  all  appearances  it 
flickered  out  with  the  passing  of  physical 
life.     Since  no  evidence  to  the  contrary 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  19 

was  presented,  science  regarded  this  re- 
ligious belief  as  a  superstition. 

The  third  aspect  is  that  the  great  body 
of  foremost  scientific  men  has  slowly 
come  round  to  recognizing  the  truth  of 
the  fact  of  the  phenomena  as  brought  out 
thirty  and  forty  years  ago  by  those  emi- 
nent pioneer  investigators  of  physic  phe- 
nomena, Alfred  Russell  Wallace,  Sir 
William  Crookes,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge, 
William  James,  Frederic  W.  H.  Myers, 
Henry  Sidgwick,  Edmund  Gurney,  and 
their  many  associates  in  the  British  So- 
ciety for  Psychical  Research,  which  so- 
ciety was  organized  by  them.  Professor 
ZoUner,  the  great  German  physicist, 
dealt  with  these  phenomena  thirty  years 
since  in  his  monumental  work,  ^'Trans- 
cendental Physics."  But  he,  like  Wal- 
lace, Crookes,  Lodge,  and  their  fellows, 
was  ridiculed,  sneered  at,  and  denounced. 


// 


20         Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Zollner  was  accused  of  being  insane  for 
venturing  to  declare  that  he  had  seen 
various  extraordinary  psychic  phenom- 
ena. The  scientific  worldj  at  that  time, 
and  until  a  few  years  ago,  was  wholly 
under  the  influence  of  the  materialist 
teachings.  Stoutly  denying  that  any- 
thing of  a  super-normal  character  could 
exist,  it  dismissed  the  evidence  presented 
by  these  advanced  investigators  as  con- 
trary to  human  reason. 

Strikingly  indicative  of  how  com- 
pletely scientific  knowledge  has  become 
revolutionized  by  psychical  research  was 
the  reception  accorded  to  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge's  declaration  before  the  British 
Society  for  Psychical  Research  recently 
that  exhaustive  tests  had  proved  the  sur- 
vival of  human  intelligence  in  discarnate 
form.  "Well  known  persons,"  said  he, 
"are  constantly  purporting  to  communi- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  21 

cate  with  us  with  the  express  purpose  of 
patiently  proving  their  known  personal- 
ities, and  giving  evidence  of  knowledge 
appropriate  to  them.  Not  easily  or 
early  do  we  make  this  admission,  in  spite 
of  long  conversations  with  what  purports 
to  be  the  surviving  intelligence  of  those 
friends  and  investigators.  We  were  by 
no  means  convinced  of  their  identity  un- 
til crucial  proof,  difficult  even  to  imag- 
ine, had  according  to  some  of  our  beliefs 
been  supplied." 

Twenty  or  even  five  years  ago  such  an 
assertion  would  have  called  forth  impas- 
sioned taunts  and  flings  from  the  gener- 
ality of  scientists.  But  only  the  deepest 
interest  and  acquiescence  were  mani- 
fested by  his  brother  scientists  on  this  oc- 
casion. His  address  was  eagerly  looked 
forward  to,  and  as  engrossingly  wel- 
comed, listened  to,  and  read.     For  thirty- 


22         Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

five  years  Sir  William  Crookes  had  been 
made  the  subject  of  most  virulent  de- 
nunciation; he  was  accused  of  being 
credulous  and  lightheaded  in  his  psychic- 
al investigations;  and  every  conceivable 
attempt  was  made  to  discredit  him. 
When,  however,  in  his  celebrated  address 
to  the  British  Society  for  the  Advance- 
ment of  Science,  not  long  since,  he  re- 
iterated his  conviction  that  the  human 
personality  survives,  and  gave  scientific 
reasons  which  led  him  to  that  conclusion, 
not  a  discordant  murmur  arose. 

Wallace,  Crookes,  Lodge,  James,  and 
their  fellow  pioneers  had  passed  through 
precisely  the  same  stages  that  Morselli, 
Janet,  Richet,  Botazzi,  Foa,  and  the  other 
more  recent  converts  have  only  just  un- 
dergone. Wallace,  who  divided  with 
Darwin  the  distinction  of  developing  the 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life         23 

theory  of  evolution,  was  an  intense  and 
avowed  materialist^  as  also  were  Crookes, 
Lodge,  and  the  others.  All  were  pro- 
nounced skeptics  as  to  the  possibility  of 
supernormal  phenomena;  in  fact,  their 
investigations  of  the  subject  arose  from 
an  aim  to  expose  certain  apparently  oc- 
cult happenings  as  fraud  and  charlatan- 
ism. "Some  slight  but  inexplicable  phe- 
nomena," says  Wallace,  "first  attracted 
my  attention.  I  set  out  to  expose  them, 
but  the  facts  beat  me." 

Years  of  investigation  convinced  Wal- 
lace, Crookes,  Lodge,  Sidgwick,  and  the 
rest  that  the  phenomena  were  true. 
Still  they  were  unwilling  to  believe  that 
these  seemingly  extraordinary  occur- 
rences were  of  supernormal  character. 
Only  after  many  more  years  of  patient  re- 
search  and   thought   did   they  conclude 


24         Beyond  the  Borderline  op  Life 

that  the  phenomena  were  the  manifesta- 
tions of  disembodied  human  intelli- 
gences. 

Although  pioneers  in  a  modern  scien- 
tific sense,  Wallace  and  his  associates 
were  by  no  means  the  discoverers  of  these 
phenomena.  There  is  the  fullest  reason 
to  believe  that  the  ancients  had  the  wid- 
est knowledge  of  them.  If  the  evidence 
inherited  from  the  past  signifies  anything, 
the  Egyptian  priesthood  knew  of  and 
was  intimate  with  a  world  invisible  to  the 
senses.  The  Bible  contains  many  refer- 
ences which,  interpreted  by  the  light  of 
present  scientific  research,  indubitably 
confirms  the  belief  that  many  of  the  so- 
called  miracles  were^  in  reality,  mani- 
festations of  a  power  or  force  outside  the 
realm  of  bodily  senses. 

Shu   King,   the   oldest  Chinese  book, 
and  the  Chandogya  Upinishad,  one  of 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  25 

the  earliest  works  of  India,  contain  ac- 
counts of  mediumistic  communications. 
Descriptions  of  automatic  writing  and 
speaking  occur  constantly  in  ancient  lore. 
Modern  literature,  as  distinguished  from 
the  remote  historic  and  classic,  is  freelv 
interspersed  with  the  supernormal — such 
as  ghost  stories,  oracles  and  mysterious 
voices,  witch  tales,  apparitions,  so-called 
second  sight,  and  other  unusual  happen- 
ings unexplainable  by  any  known  force 
or  theory.  More  than  a  century  ago,  the 
great  German  philosopher,  Kant,  attest- 
ed in  his  works  to  some  very  extraordi- 
nary exhibitions  of  clairvoyant  power  by 
Swedenborg,  the  celebrated  Scandinavian 
scientist,  philosopher  and  mystic. 

It  may  be  charged  that  the  present  sci- 
entific affirmation  is  simply  a  recrudes- 
cence of  the  study  of  phenomena  long 
since  known.     A  great  distinction,  how- 


26         Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

ever,  exists  between  vague,  indetermi- 
nate observation,  and  scientific  investiga- 
tion and  collation  of  facts  surrounded  by 
the  most  rigid  precautions  against  possi- 
ble fraud  or  error.  This  is  a  scientific 
age  when  none  but  absolutely  authenti- 
cated facts  are  held  worthy  of  consid- 
eration. That  science  has  been  able  by 
infinite  patience  to  explore  into  a  domain 
far  removed  from  our  customary  senses  is 
its  greatest  triumph  so  far.  If  it  has  ac- 
complished this  much  in  penetrating  in- 
to some  of  the  secrets  of  nature  within 
a  few  decades,  what  may  we  not  expect 
from  the  still  finer  development  of  the 
future? 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  psychical  re- 
search came  about  in  a  fortuitous,  hap- 
hazard way.  Notwithstanding  the  co- 
pious ancient  and  medieval  records,  and 
the  traditional  and  numberless  unattested 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  27 

accounts  of  supernormal  occurrences, 
scientists  deliberately  ignored  the  sub- 
ject. To  them  it  was  not  deserving  of 
serious  thought;  they  dismissed  it  as  the 
offspring  of  blind  superstition  or  cre- 
dulity. They  saw  in  it  not  a  series  of  con- 
crete facts  invested  with  a  supreme 
meaning  for  the  human  race,  but  a  shad- 
owy, imperceptible,  elusive  maze  of  airy 
concoctions,  perhaps  the  result  of  ex- 
treme religious  ecstasy  or  of  demented 
minds.  Kant  was  one  of  the  few  men  ^ 
who  grasped  the  purport  of  these  singu-  ""--^ 
lar  manifestations;  for  as  far  back  as 
1765  that  great  mind  predicted  that  the 
time  would  come  when  they  would  be 
scientifically  proved. 

Not  until  1847  did  the  modern  psy- 
chical movement  begin.  It  really  had 
its  origin  in  the  manifestations  dis- 
played in  the  presence  of  two  American 


28         Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

girls,  the  Fox  sisters,  Margaret  and 
Katherine,  then  living  in  the  town  of  Ar- 
cadia, New  York.  In  that  year  they 
began  to  hear  strange  noises  and  see 
strange  forms.  These  phenomena,  it  be- 
came certain,  were  not  produced  by  hu- 
man causes.  The  Fox  sisters  asserted 
that  they  soon  learned  by  raps  to  commu- 
nicate with  invisible  intelligences  whom 
they  called  spirits.  The  age  was  a  se- 
verely incredulous  one;  the  wave  of  ma- 
terialism was  at  its  height;  and  the 
claims  of  the  Fox  sisters  met  with  gener- 
al derision. 

A  few  minds,  then  young,  but  since 
become  among  the  world's  greatest 
scientists,  declined  to  join  in  the  chor- 
us of  ridicule  that  went  up.  From 
those  meagre  beginnings,  with  but 
scanty  foundation  of  known  fact  to  build 
upon,  the  whole  immense  movement,  the 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  29 

most  important  in  all  times,  slowly  de- 
veloped. Phenomenon  after  phenom- 
enon has  been  uncovered  by  Wallace, 
Crookes,  and  their  colleagues.  Still  for 
many  years  the  run  of  scientists  looked 
on  and  smiled  sardonically.  Henry 
Sidgwick,  one  of  the  great  ethical 
writers  of  the  age,  declared  that  the  apa- 
thy of  scientists  and  the  absence  of  seri- 
ous organized  investigation  of  these  phe- 
nomena, constituted  a  public  scandal  and 
a  standing  reproach  to  science.  In  1882, 
he  with  a  number  of  associates  organized 
the  British  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search, a  society  which  has  done  momen- 
tous work  in  unbosoming  the  secrets  of 
the  great  unknown. 

Nothing  less  than  a  mass  of  absolute- 
ly verified  facts  could  have  effected  this 
tremendous  overturning  of  all  former 
scientific  theory  and  thought.     For  more 


so  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

than  half  a  century,  the  findings  of  Wal- 
lace, Crookes,  and  others  have  been  be- 
fore the  whole  world's  scrutiny;  if  un- 
sound, unestablished,  or  fallacious  there 
has  been  the  amplest  opportunity  to  ex- 
pose the  falsity  of  the  results.  But  far 
from  reaching  that  conclusion,  the  scien- 
tific world  more  and  more  recognizes  the 
truth  of  those  pioneer  observations,  and 
is  continuously  adding  fresh  records  to 
the  overwhelming  evidence  already 
brought  out. 


CHAPTER  II 

NATURE  OF  PHENOMENA 

WHAT  is  the  nature  of  the  phenom- 
ena, the  substantiation  of  which 
has  compelled  science  to  throw  away 
much  of  its  old  teachings  as  so  much  rub- 
bish? They  are  of  various  kinds  ap- 
parently disassociated,  but  fundamentally 
all  manifestations  of  the  same  invisible 
power.  They  come  under  two  general 
classes — intellectual  and  physical  phe- 
nomena. In  turn  these  two  classes  em- 
brace seven  orders — telepathy,  clairvoy- 
ance, materialization,  levitation,  auto- 
matic or  trance  writing  and  talking, 
clairaudience     and    possession.     Again, 

31 


32  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

in  turn,  each  of  these  groups  has  a  num- 
ber of  subdivisions.  All  of  these  phe- 
nomena are  strictly  beyond  the  range  of 
the  normal  senses  and  are  not  subject  to 
the  operation  of  any  known  law.  In 
fact,  they  contravene  and  overthrow  all 
hitherto  known  so-called  cosmic  laws. 
They  seem  to  be  subject  to  the  laws  of 
another  cosmos.^; 

How,  then,  are  they  determined? 
What  property  or  power  in  a  human  be- 
ing makes  them  apparent?  A  certain 
faculty  dormant  in  a  large  number  of 
persons,  extremely  active  in  some,  which 
is  called  mediumistic  power,  constitutes 
the  ability  to  respond  as  a  transmitting 
instrument  to  the  messages  of  discarnate 
personalities.  What  underlies  this  abil- 
ity? One  might  as  well  ask  what  the 
electricity  is  which  causes  the  telegraph 
or  telephone  to  act.     No  one  knows.     If, 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  33 

as  maintained  by  many  scientists,  the 
soul  has  an  existence  of  its  own  entirely 
independent  of  the  body,  then  some  per- 
sons seem  to  have  a  psychic  power  far 
more  highly  developed  than  that  of 
others.  We  do  not  know  whether  or  not 
this  psychic  capacity  has  any  relation  to 
heredity,  environment,  or  any  other 
earthly  condition,  inasmuch  as  we  have 
not  yet  sufficient  data  covering  that  point. 
Mediums  are  found  among  all  classes  and 
kinds  of  people — the  ignorant  as  well  as 
the  educated ;  the  coarse  not  less  than  the 
refined;  men  as  well  as  women.  The 
noted  Italian  medium,  Eusapia  Paladino, 
whose  mediumistic  manifestations  have 
had  a  great  share  in  convincing  virtually 
all  of  the  French  and  Italian  scientists,  is 
an  illiterate  peasant. 

To  speak  of  any  power  as  being  psychic 
often  invites  the  charge  that  one  is  los- 


S4s  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

ing  oneself  in  mysticism  and  in  the  oc- 
cult. But  nothing  is  actually  occult.  It 
only  seems  so.  As  Professor  Janet  ob- 
serves :  "There  are  no  terms  more  vague 
and  undefined  than  ^occult'  and  ^mystic' 
Every  phenomenon  is  occult  to  those  who 
know  it  imperfectly.  Thunder  and 
lightning  were  occult  phenomena  for 
savages.  The  study  of  the  properties  of 
metals  was  a  mystical  affair  with  the  al- 
chemists of  the  middle  ages."  Assum- 
ing that  many  of  the  great  scientists  are 
correct  in  their  hypothesis  of  a  spirit  life 
beyond  the  mundane,  and  that  when  we 
"die"  we  become  instantly  metamor- 
phosed into  spirits,  we  do  not  know  why 
it  is  that  these  discarnate  beings  select 
certain  embodied  persons  as  a  means  of 
transmitting  messages  or  giving  other 
manifestations.     But  that  this  is  the  case 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  35 

seems  to  be  abundantly  proved  beyond  a 
doubt.  The  ^Vhys"  and  "wherefores" 
remain  as  yet  a  mystery. 

Nothing  mysterious,  however,  any 
longer  envelopes  the  phenomena  them- 
selves. They  are  objective  and  tangible. 
Under  certain  favorable,  but  thoroughly 
tested,  circumstances,  they  have  been 
seen,  touched,  heard,  or  felt,  and  some  of 
them  frequently  photographed. 

TELEPATHY 

Telepathy  and  clairvoyance  by  their 
nature  belong  to  the  intellectual  class  of 
psychic  manifestations.  It  is  very  diffi- 
cult, however,  to  draw  any  sharp  line  of 
demarcation  between  the  intellectual  and 
the  physical  forms.  "The  physical  phe- 
nomena of  mediumship,"  says  Professor 
Caesar  de  Vesme,  "are  never  exclusively 


36  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

physical;  they  are  blended  with  intelli- 
gence." 

Telepathy  is  no  longer  considered  a 
conjectural  power.  Great  scientists  be- 
lieve that  they  have  fully  established  its 
existence.  They  have  demonstrated  be- 
yond a  doubt  that  it  can  be  carried  on 
between  living  persons,  provided  their 
minds  are  so  mutually  receptive  and  at- 
tuned as  to  exclude  difficulties  of  trans- 
mission. vThis  may  seem  an  extravagant 
statement,  but  it  should  be  recalled  that 
even  a  mechanical  instrument^  such  as 
wireless  telegraphy  mechanism,  must  be 
''tuned"  to  receive  messages  properly. 
The  analogy  holds,  and  the  condition  ob- 
tains to  a  far  greater  extent  when  the 
human  mind  is  the  mechanism,  which  is 
an  inconceivably  more  delicate  and  sensi- 
tive instrument. 

If  corporeal  persons  can  communicate 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  37 

telepathically,  how  much  more  easily,  sci- 
entists assert,  can  disembodied  beings 
who  are  not  hindered  by  the  gross  mate- 
rial existence,  and  who  possess  dimensions 
and  powers  of  a  character  of  which  we 
are  beginning  to  get  the  merest  glimpse. 
Is  the  creature,  they  query,  more  power- 
ful than  the  creator?  All  of  the  wonder- 
ful complex  attributes  of  civilization 
spring  primarily  from  one  faculty — 
thought.  If  a  wireless  machine,  which  is 
the  product  of  thought,  can  flash  messages 
thousands  of  miles  through  the  ether,  can- 
not the  creator  of  that  machine,  which  is 
thought,  do  even  more  extraordinary 
feats,  independently  of  material  means, 
once  it  fully  understands  and  learns  to 
operate  its  powers?  This  is  what  scien- 
tists pointedly  ask,  while  they  are  busily 
seeking  a  solution. 


SS  Beyond  the   BoRDERi.iNE  of  Life 

CLAIRVOYANCE 

Clairvoyance,  which  is  the  faculty  of 
supernormal,  lucid  seeing — that  is  to  say, 
a  sight  entirely  distinct  from  purely 
human  sight,  and  bears  an  analogy  to 
perspicacity — is  inseparably  related  to 
telepathy.  One  instance  of  a  large  num- 
ber of  occurrences  investigated  by  scien- 
tists vv^ill  suffice  to  show  the  illimitable 
scope  of  the  clairvoyant  faculty.  This 
particular  case  was  exhaustively  investi- 
gated by  Professor  William  James,  and  a 
full  account  written  by  him  was  published 
recently  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Amer- 
ican Society  for  Psychical  Research. 

Miss  Bertha  Huse,  a  young  woman  liv- 
ing in  Enfield,  New  Hampshire,  suddenly 
disappeared  early  one  morning.  She  was 
last  seen  on  a  bridge  on  Lake  Mascoma 
near  by.     On  the  supposition  that  she  had 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  39 

been  drowned,  her  employer,  George 
Whitney,  a  mill  owner,  employed  a  pro- 
fessional diver  from  Boston  to  drag  the 
lake  thoroughly.  After  three  days' 
search  no  trace  of  her  body  was  found. 
On  the  evening  of  the  third  day,  Mrs. 
George  Titus,  living  at  the  village  of 
Lebanon,  four  miles  away,  suddenly  fell 
into  a  trance.  On  waking  up,  she  in- 
formed her  husband  that  she  had  had  a 
vision  in  which  she  saw  the  exact  position 
of  Bertha's  body  in  the  lake.  Her  hus- 
band and  the  village  folk  laughed  at  her, 
but  she  insisted  upon  driving  over  to  En- 
field. The  diver  was  still  in  the  village. 
He  was  disinclined  to  take  up  the  work 
again,  saying  that  he  had  explored  the 
lake  thoroughly.  Finally  he  consented. 
The  body  was  found  in  a  deep,  dark  hole 
in  the  exact  spot  indicated  by  Mrs.  Titus. 
''It  was  so  dark  down  there,"  said  the 


40  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

diver,  Michael  J.  Sullivan,  employed  by 
the  Boston  Tugboat  Company,  "that  I 
could  not  see  my  way.     I  had  to  feel." 

This  was  a  case  of  pure  clairvoyance. 
The  great  question  is:  What  intelli- 
gence guided  Mrs.  Titus?  Certainly  not 
her  own,  nor  that  of  any  other  incarnate 
living  being.  Neither  did  chance  nor 
coincidence  have  any  part.  Science  ex- 
plains it  in  but  one  way.  The  vision,  it 
says,  was  telepathically  put  into  Mrs.  Ti- 
tus' mind  by  an  external  influence,  that 
of  one  of  those  disembodied  intelligences 
who  are  not  bounded  by  time  or  space, 
and  who  have  the  supreme  faculties  of 
both  retrocognition  and  precognition — 
faculties  absent  from  the  human  race. 
That  the  vision  could  have  proceeded 
from  her  subconscious  knowledge  is  a 
theory  not  considered  tenable. 

Were  this  an  isolated  instance  no  posi- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  41 

tive  deduction  could  be  made  from  it. 
But  many  scientists,  including  William 
James,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  James  H. 
Hyslop,  of  the  American  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  have  investigated 
many  similar  cases,  and  others  have  car- 
ried on  the  most  rigid  investigations  w^ith 
Mrs.  Leonora  Piper,  the  noted  Ameri- 
can medium,  w^hose  mediumship  is  in- 
tellectual rather  than  physical.  Charles 
Richet  has  described  a  series  of  note- 
worthy experiments.  Other  scientists 
have  deeply  studied  examples  of  clair- 
voyance elsewhere.  Recently  a  Swed- 
ish boy  of  fourteen,  John  Flottner,  has 
caused  a  great  sensation  in  Europe  by 
his  display  of  clairvoyant  powers.  Not 
long  ago  on  one  occasion  he  found,  by 
what  he  called  his  "inner  vision,"  the 
body  of  a  drowned  man,  for  whom  a 
party  of  seventy  persons  had  searched  in 


42  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

vain  for  three  weeks.  In  his  case,  as  in 
the  case  of  Mrs.  Titus,  the  facts  were 
telepathically  communicated  to  his  mind 
by  an  intelligence  who  knew  where  the 
body  lay,  and  who,  since  no  mundane 
person  could  have  possessed  that  knowl- 
edge, as  was  proved  beyond  doubt,  must 
have  been  supermundane.  This  boy  is 
under  close  observation  by  the  Swedish 
society. 

AUTOMATIC  WRITING 

An  even  better  substantiated  phase 
of  psychic  phenomena  than  telepathy 
and  clairvoyance,  which  I  have  already 
briefly  described,  is  that  of  automatic 
writing  and  talking.  The  world's  great- 
est scientists  are  convinced,  after  half  a 
century  of  investigation,  that  in  auto- 
matic writing  and  talking  they  have  dis- 
covered an  absolutely  certain  method  of 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  4S 

giving  and  receiving  messages  from  the 
so-called  dead.  ''We  have  discovered," 
said  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  in  a  recent  ad- 
dress to  the  British  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  ''that  there  is  a  new  human 
faculty  for  communicating  with  the 
dead.  The  most  important  set  of  phe- 
nomena are  those  of  automatic  writing 
and  talking." 

When  Sir  Oliver  used  the  word  "dis- 
covered," he  undoubtedly  meant  it  not 
in  a  literal,  but  in  a  scientific  sense.  It 
is  a  grave  question  whether  many  of  the 
illustrious  personages  of  the  past,  such 
as  prophets,  philosophers,  and  poets, 
were  not  automatic  writers  and  talkers. 
Thus,  to  mention  one  instance,  Socrates 
was  guided  by  a  certain  "monitory 
voice"  which,  according  to  him,  con- 
stantly guided  him,  and  which,  when  a 
word  from  him  at  his  trial  would  have 


44  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

saved  his  life,  commanded  him  to  remain 
silent. 

The  evidence  of  past  centuries,  how- 
ever, cannot  be  considered  scientific 
proof.  But  science  believes  that  it  has 
copiously  demonstrated  the  actuality  of 
the  phenomenon.  It  seems  fairly  well 
established  that  a  certain  portion  of  these 
written  or  spoken  messages  originate  in 
the  medium's  own  subliminal  mind. 
Most  of  us  imagine  that  we  are  fully 
conscious  of  all  within  us.  This,  scien- 
tific research  shows  is  a  great  error. 
[Beneath  our  conscious  self  lies  a  vast 
region  of  mind,  up  rushes  of  which  come 
to  the  surface  only  now  and  then.)  That 
distinguished  English  poet  and  scientist, 
Frederic  W.  H.  Myers,  whose  work  on 
psychical  research,  ^'Human  Personal- 
ity and  Its  Survival  of  Bodily  Death"  is 
one  of  the  greatest  and  most  remarkable 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  45 

constructive  works  of  genius  of  modern 
times,  compared  the  area  of  our  sunken 
consciousness  to  an  iceberg,  nine-tenths 
of  the  bulk  of  which  is  submerged. 

But  in  much  of  the  writing  and  talk- 
ing of  automatic  character  scientifically 
investigated,  there  is  a  great  part  that 
cannot  possibly  proceed  from  within  the 
mind  or  from  any  embodied  mind  what- 
ever. Wallace,  Crookes,  Lodge,  and 
their  colleagues  do  not  doubt  that  the 
force  or  intelligence  exerted  is  purely 
extraneous. 

To  make  this  clear  it  is  only  necessary 
to  point  out  that  when  the  medium  falls 
into  a  trance  state,  the  resulting  writing 
ceases  to  be  in  the  medium's  own  style 
and  chirography,  and  frequently  becomes 
like  that  of  the  communicating  intelli- 
gence. Yet,  in  practically  all  of  the  cases 
under  investigation,  it  has  been  proved 


46  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

that  the  medium  did  not  know  and  could 
not  have  known  anything  of  the  hand- 
writing of  the  particular  departed  intel- 
ligence giving  the  messages.  Nor  is  this 
all.  Events,  dates,  identifications,  inti- 
mate details,  the  most  profound  secrets, 
have  been  conveyed,  which  the  me- 
dium could  not  by  any  possibility  have 
known. 

James,  Hodgson,  Lodge,  Crookes, 
Hyslop,  and  Newbold  have  published 
voluminous  accounts  of  their  experi- 
ments with  Mrs.  Piper.  Mrs.  Piper's 
"controls"  are  several — a  Dr.  Phinuit, 
"Imperator,"  "Rector"  and  others. 
Through  her  they  have  spoken  and  writ- 
ten messages,  not  only  divulging  details 
which  no  living  person,  even  the  intended 
recipients,  could  have  known,  but  fore- 
casting events,  such  as  the  death  of  Rich- 
ard Hodgson  from  too  violent  exercise — 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  47 

a  warning  which  the  doctor  disregarded 
only  to  fall  dead  at  the  Gymnasium  of 
The  Union  Boat  Club. 

Flournoy  carried  on  a  similar  series 
of  experiments  with  the  noted  Swiss 
medium,  Mile.  Helene  Smith  (which 
name,  by  the  way,  is  a  pseudonym,  for 
she  dislikes  publicity),  and  in  summing 
up  the  phenomena  that  he  observed,  the 
professor  says  of  her  that  she  possesses 
the  phase  of  automatic  writing  of  an 
extraordinary  character,  "divinations, 
mysterious  finding  of  lost  objects,  happy 
inspirations,  exact  presentiments,  and 
just  intuitions." 

In  his  "Preliminary  Report  on  the 
Trance  Phenomena  of  Mrs.  Smead," 
which  has  been  published  in  the  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  American  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  Professor  Hyslop 
describes    many    striking    instances    of 


48  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

automatic  writing.  In  these,  Dr.  Hodg- 
son and  others  communicated  through 
Mrs.  Smead  messages  relating  to  events 
and  incidents  of  a  character  which  it 
was  impossible  for  Mrs.  Smead  to  know 
about. 

Cases  of  automatic  writing  and  talk- 
ing are  numerous  enough  to  fill  vol- 
umes. William  T.  Stead,  the  noted 
English  journalist,  asserts  that  he  wrote 
that  remarkable  work,  ^'Letters  from 
Julia,"  automatically,  and  produces  evi- 
dence to  prove  his  claim.  As  for  auto- 
matic talking,  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able of  the  many  modern  examples  is 
that  of  Laura  Edmunds,  a  daughter  of 
J.  W.  Edmunds,  of  New  York  City,  who 
was  for  many  years  on  the  Supreme 
Court  bench.  Judge  Edmunds  vouched 
for  the  fact  that  the  only  language  she 
knew  besides  English  was  a  school  smat- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  49 

tering  of  French.  Yet  when  in  a  trance 
state,  under  the  influence  of  her  '^con- 
trols,"  she  spoke  thirteen  languages  flu-'^'^f^^ 
ently,  including  Greek,  Polish,  Italian, 
f  and  Indian.  ''This  happened,"  says 
Judge  Edmunds,  ''in  the  presence  of 
eight  or  ten  persons,  all  educated,  intelli- 
gent, reasonable,  and  all  as  capable  as 
any  one  of  distinguishing  between  illu- 
sion and  real  fact."  This  case  in  par- 
ticular has  been  an  insuperable  stumb- 
ling-block to  those  who  advance  the 
hypothesis  that  automatic  writing  and 
talking  are  purely  functions  of  the  sub- 
conscious mind. 

In  *  The  Immortality  of  the  Soul,  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  says: 

"It  is  true  that  messages  are  often 
vague  and  disappointing  even  when  ap- 
parently genuine;  untrue  that  they  are 

*  Ball  Publishing  Co. 


50  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

invariably  futile  and  useless  and  inappro- 
priate,— such  an  assertion  could  only  be 
made  by  people  imperfectly  acquainted 
with  the  facts.  In  certain  cases  it  is  quite 
clear  that  a  bodily  organism  has  been 
controlled  by  something  other  than  its 
usual  and  normal  intelligence,  and  in  a 
few  cases  the  identity  of  the  control  has 
been  almost  crucially  established." 

Addicted  as  he  is  to  great  reserve  in 
language,  Sir  Oliver  speaks  in  still  more 
definite  and  unmistakable  terms,  "On 
the  question  of  the  life  hereafter," 
he  said  in  part,  "the  excavators  are  en- 
gaged in  boring  a  tunnel  from  the  oppo- 
site ends.  Amid  the  roar  of  the  water 
and  the  other  noises,  we  are  beginning  to 
hear  the  strokes  of  the  pickaxes  of  our 
comrades  on  the  other  side.  We  have 
received  what  an  investigation  has 
proved   to  be   messages   from   the   dead 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  51 

through  the  mediums,  Mrs.  Piper  and 
Mrs.  Verrall.  The  latter  is  endowed  to 
a  remarkable  degree  with  the  power  to 
act  as  a  translator  or  interpreter  of  the 
psychical  and  the  physical  worlds." 

In  making  this  assertion  Sir  Oliver  did 
not  reveal  the  nature  of  the  experiments. 
He  announced  that  he  would  not  antici- 
pate the  facts  contained  in  the  report, 
but  would  ask  the  world  to  wait  until  the 
report  itself  comprehensively  appeared, 
when  a  more  proper  judgment  could  be 
formed  of  the  bases  upon  which  he  and 
his  associates  rested  their  conclusions. 
This  report  is  summarized  in  the  follow- 
ing pages. 


CHAPTER  III 

CONCORDANT  AUTOMATISMS 

IT  was  by  no  means  a  secret  that  the  ex- 
perimenters had  the  purpose  in  view 
of  attempting  to  carry  on  definite,  un- 
mistakable communications  with  the 
spirits  of  Frederic  W.  H.  Myers  and  Dr. 
Richard  Hodgson.  Clergyman,  poet, 
classical  scholar,  and  scientist,  Myers  was 
a  luminously  brilliant  investigator  of 
psychical  phenomena.  He  was  a  lead- 
ing member  of  the  British  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  with  a  genius  for 
fathoming  the  secrets  of  the  great  un- 
known, and  his  death  in  1901  was  greatly 
deplored.  Dr.  Richard  Hodgson  was 
long    the    secretary    of    the    American 

52 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  53 

Branch  of  the  British  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research,  and  gave  up  years  of  his 
life  to  a  painstaking,  patient  study  of  the 
whole  range  of  psychical  phenomena, 
closely  questioning  each,  and  distinguish- 
ing the  genuine  from  the  false. 

Apart,  however,  from  the  meagre  in- 
formation that  the  experimenters  pur- 
posed to  get  into  communication,  if  pos- 
sible, with  the  discarnate  intelligences  of 
Myers  and  Hodgson,  nothing  was  known 
of  the  methods  of  the  experimenters  or 
of  the  results  of  the  tests.  This  knowl- 
edge was  carefully  guarded  from  the  out- 
side world  until  the  tests  were  brought  to 
a  conclusion  and  the  results  compared 
and  weighed. 

To  make  the  experiments  as  conclusive 
as  the  brain  of  mortal  men  could  con- 
ceive the  British  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  decided  to  put  various  well- 


54  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

known  mediums  through  a  series  of  "con- 
cordant automatisms."  Popularly  ex- 
plained, this  means  that  arrangements 
were  made  to  have  parts  of  the  same  pur- 
ported messages  from  spirit  land  con- 
veyed through  different  mediums  at  the 
same  time  although  at  a  distance.  One 
part,  it  was  planned,  would  come 
through  Mrs.  Piper  at  one  place,  another 
part  through  Mrs.  Verrall  at  another 
place,  and  other  parts  through  the  agency 
of  other  mediums  at  still  other  places. 
This  system  of  cross-correspondence  was 
an  original  one;  it  had  never  been  tried 
before;  and  at  every  stage  it  was  sub- 
jected to  the  severest  and  most  rigid 
scientific  precaution  and  tests. 

MRS.   PIPER  IN   ENGLAND 

At  the  invitation  of  the  Council  of  the 
British   Society  for  Psychical   Research 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  55 

Mrs.  Piper  went  to  England.  The  man- 
agement of  the  sittings  was  intrusted  by 
the  council  to  a  committee  composed  of 
the  Right  Hon.  G.  W.  Balfour,  then 
president  of  the  society;  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge;  Frank  Podmore,  a  well-known 
impartial  critic  of  the  spiritistic  hypoth- 
esis; Mrs.  Henry  Sidgwick,  now  presi- 
dent of  the  society,  and  J.  G.  Piddington. 
This  committee  decided  that  the  main 
objects  of  the  experiments  to  be  con- 
ducted with  Mrs.  Piper  should  be  to  en- 
courage the  developments  of  certain  con- 
trols which  had  already  been  manifesting 
in  her  trance.  These  controls  were  dis- 
carnate  intelligences  giving  the  names  of 
Henry  Sidgwick,  Frederic  Myers  and 
Richard  Hodgson. 

Mrs.  Piper  gave  seventy-four  sittings 
in  all.  The  first  thirteen  of  these  were 
held  either  at  Liverpool  or  Edgbaston 


56  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

under  the  direction  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge. 
Then  followed  fifty-eight  sittings  in  Lon- 
don, Mr.  Piddington  being  in  charge 
of  thirty-five,  Mrs.  Sidgwick  of  nineteen, 
and  Miss  Alice  Johnson  of  two  others. 
All  of  the  London  sittings,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  five  at  Mrs.  Piper's  flat,  took 
place  in  the  smoking  room  of  the  Irish 
Literary  Society  at  20  Hanover  Square, 
which  the  committee  had  rented  for  the 
purpose.  At  these  sittings  the  person  in 
charge  was  present  before  the  trance  be- 
gan, and  remained  until  Mrs.  Piper  re- 
gained normal  consciousness.  In  no 
case  did  the  investigator  enter  the  seance 
room  or  come  in  contact  with  Mrs.  Piper 
until  she  was  fully  entranced,  and  in 
every  case  left  the  room  before  the  end 
of  the  trance,  not  to  come  into  contact 
again  with  Mrs.  Piper  until  the  next  or 
some  subsequent  trance  was  in  progress. 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  57 

While  Mrs.  Piper  was  producing  au- 
tomatic writing  in  either  Liverpool, 
Edgbaston,  or  London,  five  other  medi- 
ums or  psychics  were  being  experimented 
with  simultaneously  at  different  and  dis- 
tant places.  These  were  Mrs.  Verrall, 
the  wife  of  the  noted  English  scholar; 
her  daughter,  Miss  Helen  Verrall;  Mrs. 
Thompson,  and  two  ladies  known  to  the 
British  Society  for  Psychical  Research 
under  the  pseudonyms  of  Mrs.  Forbes 
and  Mrs.  Holland.  Mrs.  Thompson's 
participation,  however,  was  cut  short  by 
the  unexpected  death  of  her  husband. 
Most  of  Mrs.  Verrall's  automatic  writing 
was  done  either  at  Cambridge  or  Mat- 
lock Bath,  or  on  the  train  between  Lon- 
don and  Cambridge.  Mrs.  Verrall 
wrote  automatically  at  other  places. 
Both  Mrs.  and  Miss  Verrall  knew  that 
experiments  were  being  made  with  Mrs. 


58  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Piper,  but  Mrs.  Holland  was  in  India, 
and  throughout  the  entire  series  of  ex- 
periments remained  in  absolute  igno- 
rance of  what  was  written  by  the  other 
mediums.  So  likewise,  did  Mrs.  Piper, 
'^unless,"  the  report  says,  ''it  be  that  she 
remembers  in  her  normal  state  things  said 
to  her  during  her  trances,  and  even  then 
the  evidential  value  of  the  results  would 
be  unaffected,  for  all  she  could  have 
learned  in  this  way  w^as  either  that  an  ex- 
periment had  been  successfully  accom- 
plished or  that  it  had  failed." 

The  script  of  Mrs.  Verrall  and  that  of 
Miss  Verrall  were  sent  at  first  to  Mr. 
Piddington  and  then  to  Miss  Alice  John- 
son, a  leading  member  of  the  British  So- 
ciety, who  in  every  case  noted  on  the  en- 
velope or  on  the  script  itself  the  date  and 
hour  when  it  reached  them.  Mrs. 
Holland's  script  was  sent  to  Miss  John- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  59 

son,  who  indorsed  each  script  with  the 
date  of  its  arrival.  In  all,  about  one 
hundred  and  twenty  experiments  in 
cross-correspondence  were  made. 

^'The  external  features  of  Mrs.  Piper's 
trance,"  says  the  report,  ^'may  be  briefly 
described  as  follows:  Mrs.  Piper  sits  at 
a  table  with  a  pile  of  cushions  in  front  of 
her,  and  composes  herself  to  go  into  a 
trance.  After  an  interval  varying  from 
two  or  three  to  ten  minutes  her  head 
drops  on  the  cushions,  with  the  face 
turned  to  the  left  and  the  eyes  closed, 
her  right  hand  falling  at  the  same  time 
onto  a  small  table  placed  on  her  right 
side.  A  pencil  is  put  between  her  fin- 
gers, and  the  hand  proceeds  to  write. 
The  writing  being  done  without  the  aid 
of  sight,  and  with  the  arm  in  a  more  or 
less  strained  position,  it  is  often  difficult 


60  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

to  decipher,  at  least  without  practice;  but 
in  spite  of  its  not  being  easy  to  read,  it 
is  remarkably  consistent  in  character,  so 
that  its  peculiarities  once  grasped  the 
correct  interpretation  of  all  but  a  very 
few  words  is  not  a  matter  of  conjecture. 

The  coming  out  of  the  trance  is  a 
longer  process  than  the  going  into  trance. 
After  the  hand  has  ceased  to  write  the 
medium  remains  quiescent  for  a  few  min- 
utes. She  then  raises  herself  slowly,  and 
often  with  difficulty,  from  the  cushions. 
When  the  body  is  erect  she  begins  to 
speak.  Her  utterance  at  first  is  usually 
indistinct,  but  as  she  gradually  regains 
her  normal  condition  it  becomes  clearer. 

All  of  the  sittings  which  Mrs.  Piper 
gave  in  England  were,  with  one  excep- 
tion, "writing''  and  not  "voice"  sittings; 
that  is  to  say,  her  automatism  took  the 
form  of  writing  and  not  of  speech,  except 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  61 

during  the  waking  stage.  The  "writing" 
sittings  possess  one  advantage  over  the 
"voice"  sittings,  namely,  that  the  auto- 
matic phenomena  which  occur  in  them 
by  their  very  nature  record  themselves." 

The  report  declares  that  the  trance 
script  was  always  kept  out  of  Mrs. 
Piper's  sight,  and  taken  away  at  the  end 
of  the  sitting,  so  that  she  never  saw  it  or 
had  access  to  it  at  any  time.  In  her 
normal  condition  she  neither  asked  for 
nor  received  any  information  whatever 
about  what  had  happened  at  the  sittings, 
except  that  "she  was  occasionally  told 
that  the  results  were  considered  interest- 
ing and  promising,  and  that  they  were  of 
a  different  nature  from  what  had  previ- 
ously been  obtained." 

At  the  very  beginning  of  the  sittings 
there  came  correspondence  of  the  most 


62  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

definite  character  in  the  production  of 
which  there  seemed  to  be  the  fullest  evi- 
dences both  of  supernormal  intelligent 
direction  and  of  ingenuity.  On  Jan.  27, 
1907,  at  12:30  P.M.,  Calcutta  time 
(6:30  A.M.  Greenwich  time),  Mrs. 
Holland  during  a  trance  at  Calcutta  au- 
tomatically wrote  a  script  containing  the 
names  Francis  and  Ignatius.  Some  five 
or  six  hours  later,  at  a  sitting  in  London, 
Mr.  Piddington  asked  what  purported 
to  be  the  spirit  of  Myers  what  were  the 
real  names  of  Mrs.  Piper's  two  controls 
who  called  themselves  ^'Imperator"  and 
"Rector."  Myers,  according  to  Mr. 
Piddington,  spontaneously  replied  by  the 
medium  of  Mrs.  Piper's  automatic  writ- 
ing that  they  were  Francis  and  Ignatius. 
It  is  possible  that  these  coincidences 
might  have  been  accidental,  but  this  ob- 
jection could  not  be  applied  by  any  proc- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life         6S 

ess  of  reasoning  to  the  results  of  the  sit- 
ting of  Jan.  1 6,  1907. 

At  this  sitting  Mrs.  Piper  fell  into  her 
usual  trance,  and  the  spirit  of  Myers  pur- 
ported to  appear,  writing  by  her  hand. 
To  make  a  definite,  unmistakable  test 
Mr.  Piddington  asked  Myers  to  draw  a 
certain  design  when  giving  his  messages 
through  other  mediums.  The  report 
describes  this  conversation  through  Mrs. 
Piper: 

Piddington:  Myers,  when  you  send 
a  message  to,  say,  Mrs.  Verrall,  and  then  a 
similar  message  to  Mrs,  Holland,  could 
you  not  mark  each  with  some  simple  but 
dis  tinctive  des  ig n  ? 

Myers:  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  I 
understand  you.  Do  you  mean  when 
I  give  a  message  to  make  a  sign  after  or 
before  the  written  message? 

Piddington:     Yes;  if  you   wrote,  for 


64  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

instance,  ^'sunshine''  through  Mrs.  Ver- 
rail,  and  then  afterwards  through  Mrs, 
Holland,  you  might  put,  say,  a  triangle 
within  a  circle,  or  some  simple  sign  like 
that,  to  show  that  there  is  another  mes- 
sage to  be  looked  for  corresponding  with 
the  message  so  marked. 

When  the  investigators  received  the 
script  of  Mrs.  Verrall's  automatic  writ- 
ing they  were  immensely  astonished  and 
highly  gratified  to  note  in  it  a  circle  with 
triangle  within  it  distinctly  drawn.  This 
script  embodied  a  cross-correspondence 
which  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  his  associate 
experimenters  at  once  were  forced  to  con- 
clude was  undoubtedly  successful.  Mrs. 
Verrall's  drawing  was  unmistakable. 
Although  one  of  Mrs.  Holland's  scripts 
written  in  far-off  India  contained  geo- 
metrical drawings  in  which  were  a  circle 
and  a  triangle,  the  cross-correspondence 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life         65 

in  this  case  was  really  confined  to  the 
three  mediums,  Mrs.  Verrall,  Miss  Ver- 
rall  and  Mrs.  Piper. 

The  communications  in  which  the 
figure  of  a  triangle  within  a  circle  ap- 
peared were  very  remarkable.  Com- 
municating through  Mrs.  Piper,  Myers 
asked  a  few  days  later  whether  Mrs.  Ver- 
rall had  received  the  word  "Evangelical." 
As  Mr.  Piddington  had  not  as  yet  seen 
Mrs.  Verrall's  latest  script,  he  replied 
that  he  did  not  know,  but  would  inquire. 
Myers  then  said  that  he  and  Hodgson 
were  together  and  were  communicating 
through  George  Pelham,  one  of  Mrs. 
Piper's  spirit  "controls."  Myers  said 
that  in  his  messages  through  Mrs.  Ver- 
rall he  had  repeatedly  referred  to  Brown- 
ing's poems.  "Look  out,"  he  wrote,  "for 
Hope,  Star,  and  Browning."  This  cryp- 
tic   communication    puzzled    Mr.    Pid- 


66  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

dington.  At  a  subsequent  sitting  with 
Mrs.  Piper,  George  Pelham  announced 
that  Myers  had  given  the  name  "Evelyn 
Hope"  through  Mrs.  Verrall.  It  then 
appeared  from  Myers's  explanation  that 
this  was  the  name  he  had  been  trying  to 
give  through  "Rector,"  another  of  Mrs. 
Piper's  controls,  but  that  "Rector"  had 
put  it  down  as  "Evangelical."  Hence, 
Mr.  Piddington  understood  that  "Evan- 
gelical" was  the  word  Myers  had  given 
through  Mrs.  Verrall.  "It  was  very 
stupid  of  ^Rector,'  "  wrote  George  Pel- 
ham,  "as  Hodgson  and  Myers  had  kept 
repeating  it  over  and  over  again  to  him." 
"It  will,"  comments  Mr.  Piddington, 
"I  think,  be  allowed  that  the  modifica- 
tion of  Evangelical  into  Evelyn  Hope 
was  spontaneous  and  not  traceable  to  any 
suggestion  from  me.  Indeed,  I  could 
not  have  given  such  a  suggestion,  as  be- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  67 

yond  the  fact  that  'Evelyn  Hope'  brought 
in  the  word  'hope'  again,  it  conveyed  at 
the  time  no  more  meaning  to  me  than  the 
word  'evangelical';  and,  moreover,  I  did 
not  then  know  that  it  was  the  title  of  one 
of  Browning's  poems." 

The  significance  of  Myers's  purported 
requests  to  look  out  for  "Hope,  Star,  and 
Browning"  was  made  clear.  When 
Mrs.  Verrall's  script  came,  it  contained 
quotations  from  Browning's  poem  and 
also  these  lines : 

"That  gives  the  words,  but  an  ana- 
gram would  be  better.  Tell  him  that — 
rats,  star,  tars,  and  so  on.  Try  this.  It 
has  been  tried  before.  Reats,  rear- 
range these  five  letters,  or,  again,  tears, 
stare." 

To  get  the  connecting  link  it  is  now 
necessary  to  quote  Mr.  Piddington.  He 
says: 


6s  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

^'When  by  reason  of  the  coincidences 
involved,  my  mind  began  to  concentrate 
itself  on  these  two  pieces  of  script  (Mrs. 
Verrall's)  and  the  words  'Hope,  Star, 
Browning,'  given  in  the  Piper  trance,  a 
vague  impression  came  over  me  that  the 
words  'rats,  arts,  star'  had  somehow  and 
somewhere  come  under  my  eyes  before. 

At  first  I  thought  this  must  be  a  mere 
fancy,  and  when,  after  a  little,  I  seemed 
to  remember  having  seen  them  written 
on  a  piece  of  paper  in  Dr.  Hodgson's 
handwriting  when  I  went  through  his 
private  papers  in  the  early  Summer  of 
1906,  at  Boston,  I  was  inclined  to  accuse 
myself  of  suffering  from  a  delusion  of 
memory. 

Still,  the  memory — real  or  fancied — 
persisted,  and  to  satisfy  myself  I  wrote  to 
Dr.  Hodgson's  executors  in  Boston,  Mr. 
George  Dorr  and  Mr.  Henry  James,  Jr., 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  69 

and  asked  them  to  search  among  the  odds 
and  ends,  which,  with  other  matter,  such 
as  letters,  I  had  handed  over,  for  a  scrap 
of  paper  with  the  words  ^rats,  arts,  star' 
upon  it.  On  Aug.  23,  1907,  Mr.  James 
sent  me  the  sheet  of  paper  containing  a 
rough  draft  of  anagrams  in  the  hand- 
writing of  Dr.  Hodgson. 

I  confess  that  when  this  came  into  my 
hands  I  felt  as  I  suppose  people  do  when 
they  have  seen  a  ghost;  for,  though  not 
surprised  to  see  the  'rats,  arts,  star'  ana- 
gram, I  was  positively  startled  when  I 
saw  the  anagram  'rates,  stare,  tears, 
aster,'  &c.,  of  which  I  had  no  recollec- 
tion whatever." 

Nor  is  this  all.  In  the  Browning 
poem,  written  automatically  by  Mrs. 
Verrall,  there  appeared  the  drawing  of 
a  circle  with  a  triangle  inclosed.  But 
the  coincidence  did  not  end  there.     Miss 


70  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Helen  Verrall  had  also  been  receiving 
automatic  communications,  each  of 
which  contained  the  drawing  of  a  star 
and  the  word  ^'star" — a  combination  not 
found  elsewhere  in  Miss  Verrall's  auto- 
matic writing  during  the  remainder  of 
the  experiments.  These  star  drawings 
were  followed  by  the  words :  ^'That  was 
the  sign."  Many  other  distinct  points  of 
connection  were  noted  in  the  cross-corre- 
spondence communicated  through  three 
mediums.  The  committee  for  the  Brit- 
ish Society  for  Psychical  Research  could 
not  avoid  considering  the  hypothesis  that 
Myers  and  Hodgson  were  both  commu- 
nicating at  the  same  time,  and  that  each 
was  giving  certain  recognized  signs  of 
identity  and  certain  tests,  the  significance 
of  which  was  clear  and  indisputable. 

On  Feb.  ii,  1907,  Mrs.  Verrall,  as  it 
was  learned  later,  drew  three  converging 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life         71 

arrows.  On  the  next  day  what  pur- 
ported to  be  Hodgson's  spirit  announced 
through  Mrs.  Piper  that  as  a  test  he  had 
given  ''Arrow"  to  Mrs.  Verrall.  After 
this  sitting  Mr.  Piddington  received 
Mrs.  Verrall's  script,  confirming  Hodg- 
son's statement.  On  Feb.  17,  Miss  Ver- 
rall, living  at  a  distance  from  her  mother, 
automatically  drew  an  arrow,  followed 
by  the  words,  "many  together."  Mrs. 
Verrall's  script,  written  at  11:15  A.M., 
on  Feb.  18,  contained  several  words  be- 
ginning with  a  and  ar.  On  the  same  day 
about  1 1 130  A.  M.,  Hodgson,  through 
Mrs.  Piper,  reminded  Mr.  Piddington  to 
''watch  for  arrow."  On  Feb.  19,  Pid- 
dington first  saw  Mrs.  Verrall's  script  of 
Feb.  18,  and  Miss  Verrall's  of  Feb.  17. 
On  Feb.  20,  Hodgson  inquired:  "Got  ar- 
row yet?"  Mr.  Piddington  answered 
that  Mrs.  Verrall  had  not  written  the 


72  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

word,  but  had  drawn  arrows.  Hodgson 
replied  that  he  would  make  further 
attempts  to  have  Mrs.  Verrall  write  ^'ar- 
row." On  March  i8,  Mrs.  Verrall 
automatically  drew  a  bow  and  arrow,  an 
arrow  and  a  target.  On  June  4,  Mrs. 
Verrall  learned  for  the  first  time  that 
arrow  had  been  the  subject  of  a  cross- 
correspondence  experiment. 

The  ''laurel  wreath"  test  of  Feb.  26 
was  another  striking  experiment.  On 
that  day  the  "control"  George  Pelham, 
speaking  through  Mrs.  Piper,  announced 
that  "he  had  given  her  the  words 
'laurel  wreath.'  "  The  "her"  evidently 
referred  to  another  medium.  On  the 
following  day  the  spirit  of  Myers  pur- 
ported to  be  communicating  through 
Mrs  Piper.  Myers  said  that  he  had 
given  the  words  "laurel  wreath"  to  Mrs. 
Verrall.     When     Mrs.    Verrall's     auto- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life         73 

matic  script  arrived  it  was  found  to  be- 
gin with  the  phrase,  "Laurels  and  an- 
other." As  it  went  on  the  words  "laurel 
bough"  occurred  several  times.  Finally 
in  the  last  lines  was  written  the  phrase 
"laurel  wreath,"  followed  by  these  broken 
sentences : 

"Corona  laureata  (laurel  crown)  has 
some  meaning  here. 

With  laureata  wreath  his  brow  serene 
was  crowned. 

No  more  to-day — await  the  better  news 
that  brings  assurance  with  a  laurel 
crown." 

This  script  was  covered  with  drawings 
representing  laurel  leaves  and  a  laurel 
wreath.  Neither  the  word  "laurel"  nor 
"wreath"  was  written  or  represented  by 
drawings  in  any  other  of  Mrs.  Verrall's 
script  at  any  time. 

The    report    thus    conservatively    ob- 


74  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

serves:  "The  extracts  given  explain 
themselves,  and  need  no  comment,  except 
it  be  to  remark  that  whatever  the  agency- 
it  is  that  effects  the  coincident  phenom- 
ena, it  is  not  a  force  that  is  working 
blindly  and  mechanically,  but  with  in- 
telligence and  design." 

CROSSING  THE  BAR 

The  following  extracts  from  an  article 
by  John  W.  Graham,  M.A.,  in  The  Hib- 
bert  Journal  sum  up  Mr.  Piddington's 
report  on  this  incident: 

On  the  29th  of  January  1907,  Mrs. 
Verrall  propounded  to  the  Myers  of  the 
Piper  trance  a  test  question,  which  had 
been  carefully  selected  so  as  to  be  wholly 
meaningless  to  Mrs.  Piper  herself,  and  to 
suggest  matter  which  was  so  familiar  to 
Frederic  Myers  in  his  life,  and  had  en- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  75 

tered  so  fully  into  his  habitual  thoughts, 
that  there  was  good  hope  of  his  recollect- 
ing it.  On  account  of  the  difficulty  of 
getting  questions  through  the  well-inten- 
tioned but  rather  ill-educated  amanuensis 
called  ''Rector,"  who  appears  to  work 
Mrs.  Piper's  hand,  the  question  had  to  be 
very  short;  and  in  order  to  avoid  the 
chance  of  lucky  guesses,  and  to  make  the 
result  comfortably  certain,  this  short 
question  was  to  be  such  as  would  have 
large  allusiveness,  and  might  open  up 
many  recollections  in  the  mind  of  Myers. 
It  was  thought  also  that  if  the  question 
bore  some  kind  of  affinity  to  a  subject 
already  touched  by  Myers,  though  an 
affinity  unrecognisable  by  the  medium, 
there  would  be  still  more  hope  that  his 
mind  would  again  travel  on  that  path. 
It  was  also  necessary  that  the  result 
should  be  verifiable,  and  not  dependent 


76  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Upon  Mrs.  Verrall's  or  upon  anyone  else's 
impressions.  These  conditions  appeared 
to  be  all  fulfilled  by  the  three  Greek 
words  (^^Tos  ovpavb^  aKVfXiov  (''the  Very  heavens 
without  a  w^ave"),  which  were  painfully 
spelt  out,  frequently  repeated  so  as  to  be 
transmitted  correctly,  and  plainly  caught 
by  Myers  on  the  above  date. 

These  words  are  from  the  Enneades  of 
Plotinus,  and  are  part  of  a  description  of 
the  circumstances  which  accompany  and 
condition  ecstasy;  that  is,  the  condition  in 
which  the  soul  is  sufficiently  separated 
from  the  body,  or  from  the  bodily  inter- 
ests, to  be  in  such  close  communion  with 
the  divine  as  to  receive  visions  in  rapt 
contemplation.  The  last  of  the  three 
words  is  a  rare  one,  not  known  even  to 
Mr.  Piddington,  still  less,  of  course,  to 
the  absolutely  Greekless  minds  of  Mrs. 
Piper  and  of  "Rector." 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  77 

Now  for  the  connection  of  the  words 
with  F.  W.  H.  Myers.  In  his  treatment 
of  Ecstasy  in  Human  Personality  (Epi- 
logue, vol.  ii,  p.  291),  he  quotes  the  para- 
graph in  which  they  occur,  not  in  Greek 
but  in  English.  He  translates  the  sen- 
tence containing  them — ''Calm  be  the 
earth,  the  sea,  the  air,  and  let  Heaven 
itself  be  still."  Moreover,  the  actual 
Greek  words  are  used  by  Myers  as  the 
motto  to  his  poem  on  Tennyson,  which  is 
printed  in  Fragments  of  Prose  and  Poetry 
(p.  117).  These  words,  which  state  that 
clear  outward  calm  in  nature  is  propitious 
to  the  trance  condition  of  ecstasy,  were 
pretty  sure  to  have  been  often  pondered 
by  Myers  in  writing  his  careful  inquiry 
into  the  experience  of  ecstasy — an  in- 
quiry, it  is  safe  to  say,  more  scientific, 
more  wide  in  its  outlook,  alike  more 
penetrating    and    more    comprehensive, 


78  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

than  any  preceding  treatment  of  the  phe- 
nomenon. It  was  therefore  reasonable  to 
expect  that  Myers  would  still  be  able  to 
translate  the  words  and  to  quote  illus- 
trative allusions  to  its  subject  matter  from 
Tennyson  and  from  Plotinus,  and  pos- 
sibly from  his  own  works.  It  was  not  yet 
seen  by  any  of  the  experimenters  how 
closely  connected  were  Tennyson  and 
Plotinus  in  the  mind  of  Myers,  and  prob- 
ably also  in  the  mind  of  Tennyson  him- 
self; and  how  deeply  appropriate  it  was 
that  that  motto  from  Plotinus  should  be 
placed  at  the  head  of  a  poem  on  Tenny- 
son. The  words  out  of  that  poem  to 
which  the  motto  is  appropriate  are 
these : — 

Once  more  he  rises;  lulled  and  still, 
Hushed  to  his  tune  the  tideways  roll ; 

These  waveless  heights  of  evening  thrill 
With  voyage  of  the  summoned  Soul. 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life         79 

The  allusion  is,  of  course,  to  Tenny- 
son's Crossing  the  Bar;  they  are  indeed 
little  but  a  paraphrase  of  that  lovely 
lyric : — 

And  may  there  be  no  moaning  of  the  bar, 

When  I  put  out  to  sea, 
But  such  a  tide  as  moving  seems  asleep. 

Too  full  for  sound  and  foam, 
When  that  which  drew  from  out  the  bound- 
less deep 
Turns  again  home. 

We  have  therefore  to  do  with  the  idea  of 
calm,  particularly  as  a  preliminary  to 
spiritual  exaltation;  calm  of  nature  as 
conducive  to  calm  of  spirit;  and  we  shall 
expect,  if  the  experiment  be  successful, 
allusions  to  that  idea  in  Tennyson,  and 
reference  to  Plotinus. 

It  was  carefully  discovered  that  Mrs. 
Piper  had  never  seen  the  volume.  Frag- 
ments of  Prose  and  Poetry,  and  even  if 


80  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

she  had  read  the  English  rendering  of  the 
words  in  Human  Personality^  it  would 
not  convey  the  Greek. 

A  previous  connection  with  the  words 
^'halcyon  days"  in  Mrs.  Verrall's  script 
was,  as  was  intended,  remote  and  un- 
recognisable. Let  it  be  remembered  that 
we  have  to  do  in  this  investigation  with 
the  operation  of  a  mind  which  appears  to 
dream,  and  to  bring  out  of  its  treasures 
unexpected  allusions,  glimmering  at- 
tempts at  a  central  idea,  which  it  appar- 
ently takes  time  and  effort  for  the  speaker 
to  make  clear,  and  then  to  pass  through 
an  ill-made  machine.  It  is  something 
like  writing  a  letter  in  the  dark,  which 
you  hand  to  a  sleepy  postman,  who  will 
carry  it  through  an  unknown  land,  past 
ancient  block-houses  of  prohibitive  tar- 
iffs and  along  unsealed  passes,  to  a  tem- 
porary and  movable  address;  and  the  re- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  81 

sponses  are  brought  by  dictation  to  an 
illiterate  scribe,  who  does  not  always 
know  the  meaning  of  what  he  writes. 

We  shall  not,  therefore,  be  surprised 
that  the  first  answers  to  the  test  question 
were  glimmering  approaches  to  it  only. 
The  day  that  the  question  was  pro- 
pounded, Myers,  through  Mrs.  Piper,  al- 
luded to  a  ''haven  of  rest,"  which  he  con- 
nected with  a  low  armchair  in  Mrs. 
Verrall's  house,  and  to  ''celestial  halcyon 
days,"  both  of  which  he  claimed  to  have 
referred  to  in  her  earlier  script  since  he 
left  this  life.  This  was,  on  the  whole,  a 
well-founded  claim,  and  it  was  doubtless 
made  because  Mrs.  Verrall  had  told  him 
that  the  answer  to  her  question  would 
have  some  slight  connection  with  some- 
thing previously  given.  We  thus  see  him 
on  the  right  track,  having  apparently 
caught  the  idea  of  calm.     He  went  on  to 


82  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

speak  of  ^'larches"  and  ''laburnum."  A 
dreamer  who  was  dreaming  of  Tennyson 
in  connection  with  the  word  "halcyon" 
might  easily  pass  on  to  the  verse: — 

When  rosy  plumelets  tuft  the  larch, 
And  rarely  pipes  the  mounted  thrush; 
Or  underneath  the  barren  bush 

Fhts  by  the  sea-blue  bird  of  March. 

For  the  "sea-blue  bird  of  March"  is  the 
kingfisher  or  halcyon.  Just  at  the  end  of 
the  sitting,  however,  all  that  could  be 
expressed  was  the  word  "larches,"  and 
that  led  on  to  another  nature  reminiscence 
from  In  Memoriam:  "laburnums  drop- 
ping wells  of  fire."  All  this  would  de- 
serve the  name  of  fanciful  if  it  stood 
alone;  but  we  will  proceed. 

We  now  turn  to  Mrs.  Verrall's  script, 
which  on  the  12th  of  February  ran 
thus : — 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  83 

The  voyage  of  Maeldune  faery  lands  for- 
lorn and  noises  of  the  western  sea — 
thundering  noises  of  the  western  sea. 

It  Is  about  Merlin  and  Arthur's  realm — 
Merlin's  prophetic  vision — "all  night 
long  mid  thundering  noises  of  the 
western  sea"  and  how  he  would  not 
go — the  passing  of  Arthur. 

And  then  the  Island  valley  of  AvUIon  where 
blows  not  any  wind  nor  ever  falls 
the  least  light — no  not  that  but  you 
have  the  sense — there  falls  no  rain 
nor  snow  nor  any  breath  of  wind 
shakes  the  least  leaf. 

I  will  try  to  get  the  Idea  elsewhere  con- 
veyed— but  it  Is  hard  and  I  know  I 
have  failed  before.  Why  will  you 
not  put  the  signature?  Surely  you 
know  now  that  it  is  not  you. 
FWHM. 

Here  we  have  more  Tennysonian  calm 
with  the  island  valley  of  Avilion,  which 
he  could  not  manage  to  quote  quite  cor- 
rectly.    The  words  near  the  end,  "Why 


84'  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

will  you  not  put  the  signature?  Surely 
you  know  now  that  it  is  not  you. 
FWHM,"  appear  to  be  remarks  which 
have  leaked  through,  addressed  by 
Myers  to  Mrs.  Verrall  as  medium. 

The  Keats  quotation  ''faery  lands  for- 
lorn," is  also  used  as  title  of  a  poem  by 
Myers  published  in  his  Fragments,  and  in 
that  poem  are  references  to  "that  heaven- 
high  vault  serene,"  and  ''unearthly 
calms."  He  is  thus  giving  a  clear  al- 
lusion from  his  own  words  to  the  idea 
required  of  him.  Myers's  poem  speaks 
of  a  voyage  north  from  Aalesund  to 
"Isles  unnamed  in  gulfs  unvoyaged," 
just  as  does  the  Voyage  of  Maeldune. 

We  have,  therefore,  here  an  allusion 
than  which  few  could  have  been  more 
characteristic  of  Myers  and  more  appro- 
priate to  the  idea  he  was  desired  to  con- 
vey. 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  85 

On  the  25th  of  February  Mrs.  Verrall's 
hand  wrote: — 

I  stretch  my  hand  across  the  vapourous 
space,  the  interlunar  space — twixt 
moon  and  earth — where  the  gods  of 
Lucretius  quaff  their  nectar.  Do  you 
not  understand? 

The  lucid  interspace  of  world  and  world 
— Well,  that  is  bridged  by  the 
thought  of  a  friend,  bridged  before 
for  your  passage,  but  to-day  for  the 
passage  of  any  that  will  walk  it,  not 
In  hope  but  in  faith. 

Here  is  an  allusion  to  the  Lucretius  of 
Tennyson,  to  a  passage  descriptive  alto- 
gether of  calm  contemplation  and  such 
communion  as  is  possible  to  men : — 

The  Gods,  who  haunt 
The  lucid  Interspace  of  world  and  world. 
Where  never  creeps  a  cloud,  or  moves  a  wind. 
Nor  ever  falls  the  least  white  star  of  snow, 
Nor  ever  lowest  roll  of  thunder  moans, 
Nor  sound  of  human  sorrow  mounts  to  mar 


86  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Their  sacred  everlasting  calm !     And  such, 
Not  all  so  fine,  nor  so  divine  a  calm. 
Not  such  nor  all  unlike  it,  man  may  gain 
Letting  his  own  life  go. 

On  the  next  day  we  have,  through  Mrs. 
Verrall's  hand,  the  first  reference  to  the 
three  Greek  v^ords  connected  with  Cross- 
ing the  Bar: — 

I  think  I  have  made  him  [probably  "Rec- 
tor"] understand,  but  the  best  refer- 
ence to  it  will  be  made  elsewhere,  not 
Mrs.  Piper  at  all.  I  think  I  have 
got  some  words  from  the  poem  writ- 
ten down — if  not  stars  and  satellites, 
another  phrase  will  do  as  well.  And 
may  there  be  no  moaning  at  the  bar 
— ^my  Pilot  face  to  face. 

The  last  poems  of  Tennyson  and  Brown- 
ing should  be  compared.  There  are 
references  in  her  writing  to  both — 
Helen's,  I  mean. 

The  fighter  fights  one  last  fight,  but  there 
is  peace  for  him  too  in  the  end — and 
peace   for   the   seer  who   knew   that 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  87 

after — after  the  earthquake,  and  the 
fire  and  the  wind,  after,  after,  in  the 
stillness  comes  the  voice  that  can  be 
heard. 

Here  we  have  the  first  clear  allusion  to 
the  connection  betw^een  the  motto  from 
Plotinus  and  the  poem  Crossing  the  Bar, 
to  w^hich  it  alluded  in  Myers's  poem  on 
Tennyson.  He  evidently  feels  the  diffi- 
culty of  communication,  and  adds  that 
though  he  cannot  get  the  allusion  "sunset 
and  evening  star,"  he  does  get  part  of  the 
lines  about  "the  pilot"  and  the  "moaning 
at  the  bar."  He  then  alludes  to  the  vs^ell- 
w^orn  comparison  of  this  last  poem  of 
Tennyson's  w^ith  Brow^ning's  valediction 
to  life: — 

"Strive  and  thrive !  "  cry  "Speed,  fight  on, 
face  ever 
There  as  here." 


88  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

The  appropriateness  of  the  comparison 
of  Tennyson  the  seer,  to  Browning  the 
fighter,  is  plain ;  and  finally,  we  have  the 
allusion  to  the  '^still  small  voice"  heard 
by  Elijah  on  Mount  Horeb. 

On  the  6th  of  March  Mrs.  Verrall's 
hand  wrote : — 

I  have  tried  to  tell  him  of  the  calm,  the 
heavenly  and  earthly  calm,  but  I  do 
not  think  it  is  clear.  I  think  you 
would  understand  if  you  could  see  the 
record.  Tell  me  when  you  have  un- 
derstood. 

Calm  is  the  sea — and  in  my  heart,  if  calm 
at  all,  if  any  calm,  a  calm  despair. 

That  is  only  part  of  the  answer — just  as 
it  is  not  the  final  thought.  The  sym- 
phony does  not  close  upon  despair — 
but  on  harmony.  So  does  the  poem. 
Wait  for  the  last  word. 

Here  we  have  more  allusions  to  the  same 
thought,  though  Myers  expresses  doubt  as 
to  whether  he  has  made  ^'Rector"  under- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  89 

Stand;  but  he  thinks  that  the  record  of  the 
Piper  trances  will  be  plain  to  Mrs.  Ver- 
rall.  He  then  runs  in  another  quotation 
from  In  Memoriam,  but  corrects  its  final 
word,  inasmuch  as  the  conclusion  of  that 
poem  is  hope  and  not  despair.  He  put 
his  special  signature  to  this  bit  of  script. 
Then  on  the  nth  of  March  we  have  a 
beautiful  passage  written  by  Mrs.  Ver- 
rall's  hand,  dwelling  on  the  fact  that  both 
Plato  and  Tennyson  had  communion  with 
the  unseen: — 

Violet  and  olive  leaf  purple  and  hoary. 

The  city  of  the  violet  and  olive  crown. 

News  will  come  of  her.     Of  Athens 

The  shadow  of  the  Parthenon.  It  is  a 
message  from  Plato  that  I  want  to 
send.  It  has  been  given  elsewhere, 
but  should  be  completed  here.  It  is 
about  dim,  seen  forms,  half  seen  in 
the  evenings  grey  by  a  boy  and  after- 
wards woven  into  words  that  last — I 


90  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

want  to  say  it  again.  I  think  there 
is  a  verse  in  Tennyson  about  it. 

Plato  and  the  shadow  and  the  unseen  or 
half-seen  companionship — shapes  seen 
in  the  glimpses  of  the  moonlit  heights. 

To  walk  with  Plato  (or  some  phrase  like 
that),  with  voiceless  communing,  and 
unseen  Presence  felt.  (No,  you 
don't  get  it  right.)  Presences  on  the 
eternal  hills  (that  Is  better).  The 
Presence  that  is  on  the  lonely  hills. 
(That  Is  all  for  now.     Wait.) 

This  script  is  an  allusion  to  Frederic 
Myers's  poem  on  The  Collected  Works 
of  G.F,  Watts:— 

Then  as  he  walked,  like  one  who  dreamed. 

Through  silent  highways  silver-hoar, 
More  wonderful  that  city  seemed, 

And  he  diviner  than  before: 
A  voice  was  calling,  "All  Is  well"; 

Clear  In  the  vault  Selene  shone. 
And  over  Plato's  homestead  fell 

The  shadow  of  the  Parthenon. 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  91 

For  purposes  of  mere  evidence  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  Tennyson  and  Plotinus, 
who  were  plainly  connected  in  the  mind 
of  Frederic  Myers,  were  also  connected 
in  the  script;  and  any  reader  who  feels 
that  he  would  like  to  keep  his  mind 
closely  bent  upon  the  thread  of  evidence, 
will  do  well  to  skip  the  following  para- 
graphs. It  is  in  itself,  however,  a  deeply 
interesting  quest  to  point  out  how  the 
great  mystics  in  all  ages  speak  the  same 
tongue. 

It  is  well  known  that  Tennyson  was  all 
his  life  subject  to  periods  of  trance,  which 
he  could  sometimes  produce  by  the  device 
of  repeating  his  own  name  over  and  over; 
he  was  "wound  into  the  great  Soul,"  had 
the  sensation  of  leaving  his  body  and  liv- 
ing in  a  larger  air,  a  consciousness  of  ex- 
alted happiness  and  communion,  at  once 


92  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

broken  by  any  interruption,  or  even  by 
his  own  hand  suddenly  touching  the  ta- 
ble. He  gives  an  account  of  this  experi- 
ence in  In  Memoriam,  stanza  xcv.,  in 
The  Ancient  Sage,  and  in  Arthur's  speech 
at  the  conclusion  of  the  Holy  Grail,  and 
it  is  referred  to  pretty  fully  in  his  son's 
Memoir. 

With  regard  to  the  particular  point  of 
the  desirability  of  external  calm  to  induce 
ecstasy,  Mrs.  Verrall  has  noted  that  be- 
fore the  trance  described  in  In  Me- 
rnoriam,  xcv.,  there  w^as — 

Calm  that  let  the  tapers  burn 
Unwavering:  not  a  cricket  chirred; 
The  brook  alone  far  off  was  heard, 
And  on  the  board  the  fluttering  urn, 

and  that  the  vision  "v^as  stricken  through 
with  doubt"  in  the  sudden  breeze  of 
dawn.  Mrs.  Verrall  also  points  out  that 
there  are  some  interesting  verbal  paral- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  93 

lels  between  In  Memoriam  and  Plotinus, 
who  speaks  of  the  "illuminating  entry  of 
the  soul  bringing  a  golden  vision."  Ten- 
nyson speaks  of  ''the  spirits'  golden  day." 
''iEonian"  occurs  in  both  writers,  and 
both  speak  of  ''That  which  is"  as  com- 
pared with  the  present,  past,  and  future 
ideas  appropriate  to  time,  which  is  a  mere 
image  of  eternity.  It  is  known  also  that 
Arthur  Hallam,  the  subject  of  In  Me- 
moriam, was  a  student  of  Plotinus. 

We  will  now  turn  to  Mrs.  Piper's 
trance,  which  we  left  on  the  30th  of  Janu- 
ary, giving  then  its  first  hints  of  a  solu- 
tion to  the  question  which  had  been  pro- 
pounded to  those  who  write  through  her 
hand  the  day  before. 

On  the  6th  of  March  there  were  writ- 
ten by  her  hand  the  three  words,  "Cloud- 
less Sky  Horizon.  Don't  you  under- 
stand?" and  immediately  afterwards  the 


94*  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

sentence:  ^'A  cloudless  sky  beyond  the 
horizon."  This  is  a  paraphrase  of  the 
three  Greek  test-words.  Mrs.  Piper's 
trance  concludes  with  a  waking  stage,  in 
which,  after  the  writing  has  ceased,  she 
utters  all  kinds  of  disconnected  sentences, 
during  the  time  when  her  personality  is 
resuming  control,  or,  as  Myers  put  it, 
through  her  hand,  ^'When  the  spirit  is 
returning  to  this  light."  The  things  said 
at  this  time  are  probably  partly  Mrs. 
Piper's  own  and  partly  from  the  same 
source  as  her  script;  they  are  often  faint, 
and  can  only  be  caught  by  putting  the  ear 
close  to  her  mouth. 

When  she  was  thus  recovering  after 
this  sitting,  she  said,  "Moaning  at  the  bar 
when  I  put  out  to  sea."  Shortly  after  she 
uttered  "Arthur  Hallam"  twice,  and 
"Good-bye,  Margaret"  (the  Christian 
name  of  Mrs.  Verrall,  who,  however,  was 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life         95 

not  present).  She  then  said  for  the  third 
time,  ^'Arthur  Hallam.  Myers  said  it 
was  he.  He  says  that  he  will  give  evi- 
dence, and  he  is  glad  to  know  that  he  had 
a  good  definite  idea  in  his  innermost  soul. 
He  said  it  affected  his  innermost  soul  to 
talk  to  you,  and  he  was  so  glad." 

Then,  a  week  later,  at  the  next  sitting, 
Myers,  through  Mrs.  Piper,  attempted  to 
draw  roughly  what  was  said  to  represent 
a  bar — in  fact,  three  attempts  at  drawing 
it  were  made  altogether.  He  claimed 
that  he  had  spoken  of  '^crossing  the  bar" 
to  Mrs.  Verrall  also,  which  was  quite 
true,  though  at  that  time  unknown 
to  Mr.  Piddington,  the  experimenter. 
Myers  also  declared  that  he  had  tried  to 
draw  a  bar  with  Mrs.  Verrall,  adding,  "I 
thought  she  might  get  a  glimpse  of  my 
understanding  of  her  Greek."  Then 
Hodgson   appeared   and   asked  whether 


96  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Mrs.  Verrall  had  drawn  a  bar.  Myers 
also  came  and  asked  the  same  question. 
As  a  fact,  this  drawing  had  not  succeeded, 
though  Mrs.  Verrall  had  written,  ''May 
there  be  no  moaning  at  the  bar."  Myers 
replied  that  he  was  not  sure  that  he  had 
succeeded  in  giving  her  the  full  impres- 
sion, but  that  he  had  quoted  the  words  to 
her  as  well  as  to  Mrs.  Piper.  He  added 
that  he  had  given  to  Mrs.  Piper  both  the 
words  "Arthur  Hallam"  and  the  drawing 
of  the  bar — "so  as  to  get  the  words  with 
the  author's  individuality." 

These  references  to  Hallam  and  Cross- 
ing the  Bar  occurred  in  Mrs.  Piper's 
trance  before  Mrs.  Verrall  had  grasped 
the  significance  of  the  appearances  in  her 
script  of  the  Tennysonian  quotations. 
She  did  not  see  the  point  till  six  days 
later;  and  the  paraphrase,  "cloudless  sky 
beyond   the   horizon,"    does   not   appear 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  97 

with  Mrs.  Verrall  at  all,  and  could  not 
have  come  from  her. 

To  sum  up  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Pid- 
dington:  ^'It  appears  that  in  the  absence 
of  all  intercourse  between  Mrs.  Piper  and 
Mrs.  Verrall  after  30th  January,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  'Myers'  of  Mrs.  Verrall's 
script  on  26th  February  and  6th  March 
respectively,  connected  Crossing  the  Bar 
and  In  Memoriam  with  ovto^  ovpavos  aKVfxoiv' 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  'Myers'  of 
Mrs.  Piper's  trance  on  6th  March  alluded 
to  Crossing  the  Bar  and  mentioned  the 
name  'Arthur  Hallam'  in  close  conjunc- 
tion with  Mrs.  Verrall's  Christian  name; 
claimed  on  13th  March  to  have  given  to 
Mrs.  Verrall  a  quotation  from  Crossing 
the  Bar,  and  further  explained  that  he 
thought  this  reference  would  make  Mrs. 
Verrall  understand  in  part  what  signifi- 
cance the  Greek  words  had  for  him." 


98  Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

The  situation  then  was  that,  whilst 
abundant  allusion  to  the  Tennysonian 
connection  with  the  three  Greek  words 
had  been  made,  the  passage  in  Human 
Personality  where  they  are  translated, 
and  the  name  of  their  author  Plotinus, 
had  not  yet  appeared.  It  was  therefore 
thought  better  to  see  whether  this  field 
also  would  yield  a  harvest,  and  for  that 
purpose  Mrs.  Verrall  sat  with  Mrs.  Piper 
on  the  29th  of  April,  and  asked  Myers 
if  he  could  make  allusion  to  some  other 
group  of  associations,  and  also  give  the 
author's  name.  No  clue  was  given  to 
Myers  to  guide  him  as  to  which  of  his 
communications  had  been  found  to  be  an- 
swers to  the  question. 

This  was  a  very  confused  sitting,  pos- 
sibly due  to  the  newness  of  the  experi- 
menters and  their  difficulty  in  decipher- 
ing the  script;  and  to  everyone's  surprise 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life  99 

allusions,  evidently  made  with  great  diffi- 
culty, occurred  to  Swedenborg,  to  Dante, 
to  St.  Paul,  and  to  Francis  of  Assisi. 
References  also  occurred  to  "Azure  a 
blue  sky,"  and  to  "Halcyon  days,"  both 
concordant  with  the  central  idea.  Still 
this  was  not  what  was  wanted. 

The  next  sitting  produced  even  more 
unexpected  results,  inasmuch  as  Myers 
stated  that  the  three  Greek  words  re- 
minded him  of  "Homer's  lUiard."  This 
piece  of  illiteracy  only  shows  how  great 
are  the  mechanical  difficulties  in  passing 
a  word  through.  Without  definitely 
giving  the  author's  name,  we  have  first  an 
attempt  to  begin  the  word  Plato,  and  then 
we  have  the  word  "Socratese." 

This  was  very  confusing  to  all  the  ex- 
perimenters, and  seemed  as  though  it 
might  be  nothing  better  than  bad  guess- 
ing; the  riddle  was  hard  to  read;  it  was 


100        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

all  the  better  riddle  for  that,  nevertheless. 
Afterwards  Mrs.  Verrall  remembered 
that  in  Human  Personality,  near  the  Plo- 
tinus  passage  wherein  the  three  Greek 
words  are  translated,  occurs  an  account 
of  the  famous  vision  of  Socrates,  de- 
scribed in  the  Crito  of  Plato,  in  which  a 
fair  and  white-robed  woman  appeared  to 
him  in  his  prison,  and  quoted  to  him,  as 
he  waited  for  death,  a  line  from  the  Iliad 
(ix.  363) — ''On  the  third  day  hence  thou 
comest  to  Phthia's  fertile  shore."  Soc- 
rates took  this  as  a  promise  of  immortal- 
ity, whence  came  its  fitting  place  in  Hu- 
man Personality,  Further,  the  original 
Greek  of  this  passage  from  the  Crito  is 
given  as  the  motto  to  the  Epilogue  of  Hu- 
man Personality,  in  which  the  passage 
from  Plotinus  occurs.  The  experimen- 
ters now  felt  that  they  understood  the 
allusion  to  the  Iliad,  though  neither  the 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        101 

word  ''Iliad"  nor  the  word  ''Homer"  oc- 
curs in  the  text  of  Human  Personality  at 
that  place.  Surely  no  one  but  Myers 
could  have  made  that  allusion.  As  Mr. 
Piddington  says:  "It  would  not,  there- 
fore, have  been  possible  for  anyone  but  a 
Greek  scholar,  familiar  with  Greek  lit- 
erature, to  discover  from  these  pages  of 
Human  Personality  any  connection  be- 
tween the  vision  of  Socrates  and  Homer's 
Iliad,  even  if  he  had  sufficient  familiarity 
with  these  pages  to  be  reminded  of  the 
vision  of  Socrates  by  an  allusion  to  the 
vision  of  Plotinus." 

In  this  chapter  on  Ecstasy  in  Human 
Personality  we  have  the  passage:  "We 
need  not  deny  the  transcendental  ecstasy 
to  any  of  the  strong  souls  who  have 
claimed  to  feel  it; — to  Elijah  or  to  Isaiah, 
to  Plato  or  to  Plotinus,  to  St.  John  or  to 
St.    Paul,    to    Buddha   or   Mahomet,   to 


102        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Virgil  or  Dante,  to  St.  Theresa  or  to  Joan 
of  Arc,  to  Kant  or  to  Swedenborg,  to 
Wordsworth  or  to  Tennyson." 

On  the  same  page  we  find  the  passage: 
"Our  daily  bread  is  as  symbolical  as  the 
furniture  of  Swedenborg's  heavens  and 
hells.  .  .  .  Plotinus,  'the  eagle  soar- 
ing above  the  tomb  of  Plato,'  is  lost  to 
sight  in  the  heavens.  .  .  .  But  the 
prosaic  Swede — his  stiff  mind  prickly 
with  dogma,  the  opaque  cell  walls  of  his 
intelligence  flooded  cloudily  by  the  ir- 
radiant  day — this  man,  by  the  very  limi- 
tations of  his  faculty,  by  the  practical  hu- 
mility of  a  spirit  trained  to  inquiry  but 
not  to  generate  truth,  has  awkwardly  laid 
the  corner  stone,  grotesquely  sketched  the 
elevation  of  a  temple  which  our  remotest 
posterity  will  be  upbuilding  and  adorn- 
ing still." 

In  the  Epilogue  of  Human  Personality 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        103 

we  find  this  significant  passage: — ''I  be- 
lieve that  some  of  those  who  once  were 
near  to  us  are  already  mounting  swiftly 
upon  this  heavenly  way.  And  when 
from  that  cloud  encompassing  of  un- 
forgetful  souls  some  voice  is  heard, — as 
long  ago, — there  needs  no  heroism,  no 
sanctity,  to  inspire  the  apostle's  ^-n-tOvfiU  ds 
TO  avaXvaai^  the  dcsirc  to  lift  our  anchor, 
and  to  sail  out  beyond  the  bar.  What 
fitter  summons  for  man  than  the  wish  to 
live  in  the  memory  of  the  highest  soul 
that  he  has  known,  now  risen  higher — to 
lift  into  an  immortal  security  the  yearn- 
ing passion  of  his  love?  ^As  the  soul 
hasteneth,'  says  Plotinus,  'to  the  things 
that  are  above,  she  will  ever  forget  the 
more ;  unless  all  her  life  on  earth  leave  a 
memory  of  things  done  well.'  " 

Here    in    one    paragraph    we    have 
Myers's     deepest     and     most     original 


104)        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

thought,  beginning  with  a  quotation  from 
the  Apostle  on  whose  inward  experience 
he  had  based  in  earlier  life  his  well- 
known  mystical  poem  St.  Paul.  Next 
comes  an  allusion  to  Crossing  the  Bar, 
and  finally  a  passage  from  Plotinus;  all 
within  a  few  lines. 

Without  actually  giving  as  yet  the 
name  of  the  author  of  the  three  Greek 
words,  it  may  surely  be  said  that  the  com- 
munications are  full  of  Myers's  rich  and 
radiating  personality,  not  easy  to  mistake 
for  anyone  else's  by  any  who  knew  him. 

But  we  now  come  to  the  final  achieve- 
ment. On  the  6th  of  May,  Mrs.  Sidg- 
wick,  before  she  had  asked  a  single  ques- 
tion in  the  Piper  trance,  was  met  by  the 
word  "Plotinus,"  to  be  transmitted  with 
every  sign  of  triumphant  emphasis  to 
Mrs.  Verrall.  The  atmosphere  of  the  in- 
terview was  like  that  after  an  athletic  con- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        105 

test  in  which  victory  had  been  won; 
Myers  congratulated  himself  on  having 
fully  answered  the  Greek  as  he  had  previ- 
ously answered  a  certain  important  Latin 
question.  He  said  that  he  had  "caught" 
Rector  at  their  last  meeting,  and  had 
spelled  it  out  to  him  clearly. 

That  there  are  great  difEculties  to  over- 
come in  these  transmissions  is  what  we 
should  expect;  and  that  it  actually  is  so 
is  plain  from  the  gradual  process  by 
which  success  arrives.  As  Mr.  Pidding- 
ton  acutely  remarks,  the  first  shots  at  the 
Tennysonian  allusions  in  the  words 
"larches"  and  "laburnum" — indirect, 
only  partial  answers  as  they  were — ^were 
given  on  the  day  after  the  test  question 
was  put;  and  when  a  new  set  of  associ- 
ations was  demanded  we  had  Homer's 
Iliad,  Socrates,  Swedenborg,  St.  Paul, 
and    Dante — the    dramatis    personae,    in 


106        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

fact,  of  the  concluding  chapters  of  Hu- 
man Personality,  before  the  awakening 
strands  of  earth  memory  gave  forth  the 
name  Plotinus. 

By  way  of  guarding  against  a  tele- 
pathic origin  for  the  messages  from  a 
mind  still  on  earth,  it  may  be  noted  that 
the  whole  range  of  thought  and  knowl- 
edge is  alien  from  the  circle  of  Mrs. 
Piper's  mind;  that  Mr.  Piddington  de- 
clares himself  to  have  been  wholly  un- 
aware of  all  the  literary  connections  and 
allusions  brought  out,  and  wholly  unable 
to  assist  the  medium  unconsciously  in  any 
way,  and  that  Mrs.  Verrall — the  only 
other  person  concerned — did  not  know  or 
think  of  a  large  part  of  this  complex  of  al- 
lusions, and  did  not  even  recognise  them 
in  the  script  until  the  12th  of  March, 
which  is  after  the  Piper  answers  of  6th 
March  had  come.     It  is  also  hard  to  un- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life       107 

derstand,  if  her  subliminal  mind  is  to  be 
credited  with  both  her  own  and  Mrs. 
Piper's  script,  why  the  name  Plotinus, 
which  must  have  been  on  the  tip  of  her 
tongue  of  expectation  all  the  time,  was  the 
last  to  be  unearthed.  The  telepathic  hy- 
pothesis will,  I  think,  be  found  insufficient 
by  anyone  who  reads  the  scripts.  Mrs. 
Verrall's  mind  is  the  only  one  on  earth 
which  needs  consideration  as  a  possible 
source  of  the  knowledge  displayed ;  but  it 
is  not  only  knowledge  that  is  displayed, 
but  every  token  of  a  particular  personality. 
There  are  conversations  overheard  be- 
tween the  communicators,  their  amanu- 
ensis, and  their  medium,  either  spoken 
during  the  waking  stage  of  trance,  or 
written  by  the  hand.  Moreover,  we  must 
remember  that  we  can  only  properly  re- 
gard the  subliminal  self,  enlightening 
generalisation  as  it  is  of  many  phenomena. 


108        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

telephathic,  hypnotic,  and  so  forth,  as  an 
entity  provisionally  covering  a  good 
many  facts,  not  as  an  actually  defined  or- 
ganism, the  bounds  of  w^hose  faculties  are 
even  beginning  to  be  known.  There  may 
be  several  subliminal  selves,  or  it  may  be 
rather  a  link  of  connection  with  other 
potencies  behind  it  than  a  great  organ  in 
itself.  In  any  case,  if  all  this  is  due  to 
the  operation  of  Mrs.  Verrall's  underly- 
ing mind,  it  is  entirely  unique  among  our 
records. 

The  narrative  which  I  have  attempted 
here  to  summarise,  and  which  covers  65 
pages  of  Proceedings,  Part  Ivii.,  is  only 
one — though  one  of  the  best — of  twenty- 
three  cross-correspondences  described  in 
this  volume,  in  addition  to  the  eight 
which  were  described  in  Miss  Johnson's 
paper  on  Mrs.  Holland  in  Part  Iv.  The 
care  shown  over  minutiae  by  Mr.   Pid- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life       109 

dington,  and  the  perfect  candour  of  his 
exposition,  win  the  reader's  confidence; 
his  ingenuity  in  the  tracking  of  allusions, 
and  insight  into  the  working  of  the  frag- 
mentary mental  operations  of  the  trance 
personalities,  is  nothing  less  than  delight- 
ful to  those  who  care  for  intellectual 
athletics  and  like  to  see  a  mark  neatly  hit. 
If  the  curious  reader  wants  to  know 
what  news  of  our  life  hereafter  is  vouch- 
safed by  this  revelation,  the  best  answer  is 
to  exhort  to  patience  and  to  be  cautious 
in  statement.  ^^Myers"  and  "Hodgson" 
declare  that  they  are  very  much  more 
alive  than  they  were  on  earth,  that  they 
are  not  really  dreaming,  that  they  would 
not  desire  to  come  back  again,  and  that 
they  are  still,  nevertheless,  in  possession 
of  much  at  any  rate  of  the  memories  and 
attachments  of  earth;  they  say  that  they 
are  still  almost  as  far  as  we  are  from  the 


110       Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

innermost  Presence  and  Counsel  of  God, 
but  they  confirm  the  claims  and  sanctions 
of  the  religious  life.  They  state  that  a 
period  of  unconsciousness,  varying  in 
length,  supervenes  upon  death — a  period 
unusually  prolonged  in  Myers's  case;  and 
that  after  a  few  years — say  half  a  dozen — 
the  spirit  moves  in  its  development  too 
far  from  earth  life  to  have  any  further 
communication  with  it.  Doubtless  there 
are  numerous  exceptions  to  this ;  and  we 
gather  that  Myers  himself  is  voluntarily 
staying  near  us  for  the  sake  of  the  service 
of  our  faith. 

After  giving  in  full  the  whole  context 
of  the  communications  received  and 
critically  analyzing  them,  the  report 
states  that  they  are  undoubtedly  all  con- 
fluent parts  of  the  complex  answer  de- 
sired to  the  question  of  the  Greek 
words.     The  report  continues: 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        111 

^^To  sum  up :  In  this  concordant  epi- 
sode of  Mrs.  Piper's  trance  and  Mrs. 
Verrall's  script  the  controlling  influence 
in  both  cases  claims  to  be  one  and  the 
same  personality,  namely,  Frederic 
Myers.  To  a  question  which  could  have 
been  answered  by  Frederic  Myers,  this 
personality,  Myers,  gives  various  answers 
— all  intelligent  and  all  but  one  provably 
correct.  Before  Myers  gives  his  first  an- 
swer he  shows  knowledge  of  what  his  an- 
swer will  be.  Besides  this,  he  shows  that 
he  knows  that  he  had  previously  shown 
knowledge  of  his  answer.  One  of  the 
facts  in  his  first  answer  cannot  be  proved 
to  have  been  known  to  Frederic  Myers, 
but  there  are  good  grounds  for  thinking 
that  it  might  well  have  belonged  to  the 
great  body  of  specialized  and  character- 
istic knowledge  with  which  his  mind  was 
stocked.     The  facts  involved  in  the  re- 


112       Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

mainder  of  the  answer  given  by  Myers 
were  all  known  to  Frederic  Myers,  and 
they  emerged  in  a  manner  which  indi- 
cates that  the  intelligence  responsible  for 
their  emergence  was  as  intimately  con- 
versant with  the  closing  chapters  of  'Hu- 
man Personality'  as  Frederick  Myers,  its 
author,  must  have  been." 

This  summing  up  is,  in  effect,  an  ad- 
mission that  the  communicator  could  not 
have  been  other  than  the  discarnate  intel- 
ligence of  Frederic  Myers. 

THE  LATIN   MESSAGE 

The  ''Latin  Message"  incident 'was  an- 
other remarkable  test.  A  long  Latin 
message  was  constructed  and  transmitted 
through  Mrs.  Piper.  This  message  was 
worded  in  such  an  involved  way  that  its 
translation    was    exceedingly    difficult — 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        113 

even  with  the  help  of  a  dictionary — by  a 
person  possessed  of  only  a  small  knowl- 
edge of  Latin.  The  object  was  to  pre- 
vent the  normal  consciousness  of  Mrs. 
Piper,  who  knows  no  Latin,  from  affect- 
ing the  result,  and  partly  to  test  whether 
the  purported  spirit  of  Myers  could  dis- 
play any  of  the  knowledge  of  Latin  that 
the  corporeal  Frederic  Myers  had  pos- 
sessed. 

The  substance  of  this  long,  intricate 
message  was  a  hope  expressed  by  the  in- 
vestigators that  Myers  would  go  on  with 
his  scheme  of  cross-correspondences  and 
would  give  definite  replies  by  dififerent 
mediums.  As  the  last  word  of  the  first 
clause  of  the  Latin  message  was  given  to 
Mrs.  Piper — each  word  being  spelt  out, 
letter  by  letter — the  clock  struck  12. 
^'At  12  o'clock  on  the  same  morning,"  the 
report    states,    ''Mrs.    Verrall    at    Cam- 


114       Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

bridge  sat  down  to  write  automatically, 
and  the  script  then  produced  would  form 
a  most  appropriate  answer  to  the  first 
clause  of  the  first  sentence  of  the  Latin 
message." 

At  a  second  sitting  the  second  clause 
of  the  message  was  spelt  out  to  Mrs. 
Piper,  and  at  the  identical  time  Mrs. 
Verrall  at  Cambridge  wrote  out  auto- 
matically a  reply  which  exactly  corre- 
sponded. In  answer  to  two  more  sections 
of  the  Latin  message  communicated 
through  Mrs.  Piper  further  exact  replies 
came  through  Mrs.  Verral.  Precautions 
had  been  taken  which  made  it  absolutely 
certain  thvat  Mrs.  Verrall  could  not  have 
known  of  the  nature  or  language  of  the 
questions.  "This  script  of  Mrs.  Ver- 
rall's,"  says  the  report,  "is  undoubtedly 
in  the  style  of  Myers." 

An  equally  impressive  test  was  that  on 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        115 

April  17,  when  Mrs.  Piper  in  London 
automatically  wrote  out  the  word  Than- 
atos  (Greek  for  death).  When  Mrs. 
Holland's  script,  written  at  Calcutta  on 
April  16,  7:30  P.M.  Calcutta  time 
(1:30  P.M.  Greenwich  time),  was  re- 
ceived in  London  it  was  found  to  contain 
exactly  the  same  word,  a  trifle  misspelled. 
On  the  night  of  April  29  Mrs.  Verrall 
wrote  an  automatic  script  which  in  vari- 
ous ways  referred  to  death.  Very  as- 
tounding coincidences,  surely. 


CHAPTER  IV 

MATERIALIZATION  AND  LEVITATION 

TT  is  the  phenomena  of  materialization 
-"-  and  levitation  which  have  most  im- 
pressed the  mass  of  scientists.  Material- 
ization is  the  appearance  of  spirits  in 
objective  form,  visible  not  only  to  the 
psychic  but  also  to  the  non-psychic. 
Levitation  in  its  strictest  meaning  is  the 
raising  or  other  movements  of  human 
bodies  by  supernormal  agencies.  It  is 
often  confused  with  telekinesis,  which 
signifies  the  supernormal  movements  of 
inanimate  objects  such  as  tables,  chairs, 
and  the  like. 

In  materialization  the  resumption  of 
the  body  or  the  appearance  of  the  spirit 

116 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        117 

in  human  form  is  not  always  entire.  On 
occasions  the  full  figure  is  perceived;  in 
most  instances  only  fragmentary  parts 
are  seen,  the  head  and  the  face,  or  a  hand. 
By  their  nature  materialization  and  levi- 
tation  are  susceptible  of  greater  and 
more  direct  material  proof  than  other 
phases  of  physic  phenomena,  such  as,  for 
example,  clairvoyance. 

Although  a  modern  term,  the  fact  of 
materialization  is  by  no  means  new. 
Curiously  worthy  of  mention  is  the 
changed  attitude  of  science  towards  the 
popular  superstitions;  more  than  one  of 
these  have  been  confirmed  by  scientific 
research.  In  his  notable  work,  ^'Mira- 
cles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,"  Alfred 
Russell  Wallace  deals  with  various  au- 
thenticated cases  of  apparitions.  Three 
persons  driving  along  an  English  road- 
way saw  a  woman's  figure  in  white  float- 


118        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

ing  above  a  hedge.  If  it  was  a  halluci- 
nation of  a  subjective  vision  on  their  part, 
Wallace  asks,  how  was  it  that  the  horse 
suddenly  stopped  and  shook  with  fright? 
Dogs  have  often  been  known  to  cower 
in  a  state  of  pitiable  terror  when  appar- 
ently no  cause  existed.  Wallace  narrates 
a  number  of  instances. 

Crookes  has  written  numerous  ac- 
counts of  phenomena  which  he  investi- 
gated under  strictly  test  conditions,  with 
the  most  elaborate  precautions  against 
possible  fraud.  In  his  final  extended  re- 
port in  1874  to  the  British  Association 
for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  of 
which  he  was  president,  he  dealt  at  great 
length  with  the  phenomena  of  materiali- 
zation and  levitation.  He  gave  a  clas- 
sification of  thirteen  distinct  varieties  of 
materializations   that   he   had   seen   and 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        119 

tested.  Among  these  were  luminous 
floating  clouds,  star-like  points  of  light, 
the  appearance  of  hands  either  self-lu- 
minous or  observable  by  ordinary  light, 
and  the  sight  of  phantom  forms  and 
faces.  Many  of  these  experiments  took 
place  in  the  presence  of  the  mediums, 
Kate  Fox,  Florence  Cook,  the  Rev. 
Stainton  Moses,  and  that  very  extraor- 
dinary medium,  D.  D.  Home. 

On  one  occasion,  after  Home  had 
passed  into  a  trance,  Crookes  tells,  ''a 
beautifully  formed  hand  rose  up  from  an 
opening  in  the  dining  table  and  gave  me 
a  flower  .  .  .  This  occurred  in  the 
light  in  my  own  room  while  I  was  hold- 
ing the  medium's  hands  and  feet." 
Crookes  frequently  saw  phantom  hands, 
and  sometimes  forms  and  faces.  At 
times   these  materializations  were  solid 


120        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

and  life-like;  at  other  times  they  had  the 
appearance  of  nebulous  clouds  con- 
densed into  corporeal  forms. 

The  most  startling  of  the  many  mate- 
rializations witnessed  by  Crookes  were 
the  repeated  materializations  of  a  spirit 
form  whom  Miss  Cook  called  Katie 
King.  "Three  separate  times,"  writes 
Crookes,  "did  I  carefully  examine  Miss 
Cook  crouching  before  me,  to  be  sure 
that  I  held  a  living  woman,  and  three 
separate  times  did  I  turn  the  lamp  to 
Katie  and  examine  her  with  steadfast 
scrutiny  until  I  had  no  doubt  of  her  ob- 
jective reality." 

All  of  these  experiments  with  these 
various  mediums  were  accompanied  by 
levitations  and  telekinesis.  It  was  only 
necessary,  Crookes  reported,  for  Katie 
Fox  to  place  her  hand  on  any  substance 
and  "instantly  thuds  would  be  heard  like 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life       121 

a  triple  pulsation."  Crookes  heard  a 
great  variety  of  sounds  which  he  and  his 
fellow-investigators  declared  could  not 
have  been  produced  by  human  causes. 
On  one  occasion  a  bell  he  had  left  in  a 
room  which  he  had  carefully  locked, 
came  tinkling  into  the  room  in  which  he 
and  Miss  Fox  were.  How  did  it  get 
there?  It  must  have  been  transported 
through  solid  walls  by  invisible  mind 
and  power.  No  other  explanation  could 
be  found. 

On  another  occasion  at  a  sitting  with 
Home  other  singular  manifestations  hap- 
pened. While  Home  was  sitting  a  con- 
siderable distance  away  in  a  trance, 
Crookes'  chair  was  twisted  partly  round 
and  rose  from  the  floor.  A  chair  was 
seen  by  all  present  to  move  slowly  up  to 
the  table  from  a  far  corner.  A  heavy 
dining  table  rose  five  feet  from  the  floor. 


122       Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

These  and  many  other  phenomena  took 
place,  according  to  Crookes,  "under  spe- 
cially prearranged  conditions  which  ren- 
dered trickery  impossible."  But  the 
most  astonishing  phenomena  was  Home's 
levitation.  Crookes  notes  at  least  a  hun- 
dred instances,  witnessed  by  a  large  as- 
semblage, of  Home's  rising  in  the  air. 
One  day  when  in  a  trance  he  floated 
upward,  then  through  a  window,  out 
over  an  intervening  space  seventy  feet 
from  the  ground,  and  then  through 
another  window  which  was  opened  by 
some  unknown  force. 

At  about  the  same  time,  Alfred  Russell 
Wallace  was  carrying  on  similar  experi- 
ments, many  of  which  he  describes  in  his 
work  on  the  subject.  Likewise  was 
Zollner,  in  Leipzic,  with  the  American 
medium,  Slade.  Not  to  dwell  upon  the 
great  number  of   phenomena  witnessed 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        123 

by  these  scientists  and  the  repeated  in- 
stances brought  to  the  world's  attention 
by  the  British  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search, it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  from 
thence  on  for  many  years  the  fiercest 
controversy  raged  in  the  scientific  world 
as  to  the  reality  of  these  phenomena. 
Charges  of  fraud  and  imposition  were 
frequent;  the  ''confession"  extorted  from 
Margaret  Fox,  when  she  was  physically, 
mentally,  and  morally  sunk  in  dissipa- 
tion, and  no  longer  in  a  balanced  condi- 
tion, was  made  much  of.  The  attitude 
of  the  great  majority  of  scientific  men 
was  one  of  thinly  disguised  prejudice 
and  stubborn  opposition.  The  slowly 
growing  recognition  of  the  facts  has  de- 
veloped into  an  almost  unanimous  con- 
viction. 


CHAPTER  V 

EUSAPIA  PALADINO 

TN  Italy  and  France  the  investigation 
-**  of  psychic  phenomena  has  taken  on  so 
great  an  impetus  because  the  savants 
there  have  had  unrestricted  opportunities 
for  studying  the  phenomena  manifesting 
through  those  exceptional  native  me- 
diums, Eusapia  Paladino  and  Amedee 
Zuccharini.  Every  one  of  the  phenom- 
ena seen  and  recorded  by  Crookes,  Wal- 
lace, Lodge,  and  ZoUner  has  been  again 
and  again  witnessed  by  several  dozen  of 
the  most  famous  Italian  and  French 
scientists  recently. 

Before  referring  to  the  Paladino  man- 
ifestations a  brief  description  of  her  will 

124 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        125 

be  appropriate.     She  is  now  about  fifty- 
five  years  old.     Born  in  an  Italian  village 
of  peasant  parents,  she  was  left  an  or- 
phan, and  was  taken  care  of  by  the  vil- 
lagers.    A  fall  she  experienced  when  a 
year  old  left  a  depression  in  her  head. 
This  is  the  famous  ^^hole,"  from  which 
when  she  is  in  a  state  of  trance  a  cold 
breeze  is  said  to  issue.     Taken  to  Naples 
when  a  girl  by  a  native  of  the  village,  she 
did  household  work,  but  was  considered 
so  incorrigibly  lazy  that  she  was  turned 
out  within  a  year.     She  was  given  shelter 
by   a   family   at  home.     Friends   called 
one  night  and  in  a  spirit  of  jest  began  to 
speak  of  tables  that  danced  and  gave  raps. 
Jokingly  they  proposed  that  the  circle 
try  it.     The  group  had  not  been  seated 
ten  minutes  before  tables  began  to  rise, 
chairs  dance,  curtains  swell,  glasses  and 
bottles  move   about,   and  bells   ring. 


126        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

This  incident  was  the  discovery  of  her 
mediumistic  powers.  Subsequently  a 
saleswoman  in  Naples,  she  had  to  give 
up  the  work,  so  great  were  the  scientific 
and  lay  demands  upon  her  time,  as  soon 
as  her  mediumistic  powers  became 
known.  She  has  given  seances  in  Paris, 
Toulon,  Milan,  Naples,  Genoa,  St. 
Petersburg,  Moscow,  and  many  other 
cities.  Invited  to  Paris  by  the  Institute 
Psychologique,  she  was  experimented 
upon  by  Camille  Flammarion,  Curie,  the 
discoverer  of  radium;  Richet,  Janet,  and 
other  conspicuous  French  scientists. 
At  Toulon,  Lodge  carried  on  a  series 
of  investigations.  All  of  the  assembled 
scientists  at  these  experiments  were 
deeply  impressed.  Curie,  in  particular, 
was  astounded. 

"These       experiments,''       commented 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        127 

Flammarion,  on  Curie's  attitude,  ^Vere 
to  him  a  new  chapter  of  the  great  book 
of  nature,  and  he  was  also  convinced  that 
there  are  hidden  forces,  to  the  investiga- 
tion of  which  it  is  not  unscientific  to  de- 
vote oneself." 

The  accounts  of  Morselli,  Botazzi, 
Bozzano,  and  others  of  this  group  of 
scientists,  deal,  in  sober,  restrained,  sci- 
entific terminology,  with  the  many  phe- 
nomena they  observed.  In  his  mono- 
graph just  published  ''Eusapia  Paladino 
and  the  Genuineness  of  Her  Phenom- 
ena," Morselli  groups  the  manifestations 
of  materialization  witnessed  by  him  and 
his  colleagues  during  thirty  separate  sit- 
tings into  nine  classes  and  thirty-nine 
varieties.  At  these  seances,  he  says, 
touching,  feeling,  and  grasping  by  in- 
visible hands   form  very  common   phe- 


128       Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

nomena;  the  appearances  are  seen  either 
in  the  dark,  in  a  faint  light,  or  a  red 
light. 

''They  are  really  human  hands,"  he 
goes  on,  "which  touch,  press,  grasp,  pull, 
push,  pat  lightly,  strike,  pull  the  sitters' 
beards  or  hair,  take  off  their  spectacles, 
etc."  Heads,  arms,  shoulders,  and  faces 
were  frequently  seen.  This,  it  should  be 
noted,  is  precisely  the  same  set  of  phe- 
nomena noted  long  before  by  Wal- 
lace, Lodge,  Crookes,  and  ZoUner.  Re- 
ferring to  the  phantom  hands,  Morselli 
says:  ''On  grasping  them  we  felt  the  im- 
pression of  hands  dissolving  away,  as 
though  composed  of  semi-fluid  sub- 
stance." Appearances  of  forms  were 
very  numerous.  "These  forms,"  Mor- 
selli relates,  "advance  toward  the  sitters, 
touch  and  feel  them,  embrace,  grasp, 
draw  them  nearer  or  push  them  away, 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life         129 

caress  and  kiss  them,  with  all  the  move- 
ments of  living  and  real  persons." 

Levitations  and  telekinetic  movements 
v^ere  also  extremely  frequent  and  strik- 
ing. Morselli  says  that  he  has  felt  oscil- 
lations and  movements  of  the  table  with 
his  own  hands,  and  has  also  seen  them 
hundreds  of  times.  Of  movements  and 
beatings  of  the  table,  which  could  be  in- 
terpreted into  distinct  messages,  there 
were  a  great  multitude.  For  instance, 
two  blows  by  the  unseen  intelligences 
meant  ^^no,"  and  three  "yes."  Many 
times,  Morselli,  Botazzi,  Foa,  and  their 
collaborators  record,  the  table  rose  in  the 
air  and  floated.  This  phenomenon  was 
photographed  a  number  of  times. 

''Several  times,"  says  Morselli,  ''I  was 
pulled  violently  on  my  chair  back  in  the 
room.  Sometimes  we  felt  our  chairs 
pulled  from  us." 


130       Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

At  one  of  the  sittings  a  '^barlock" 
typewriter  weighing  thirty  pounds  was 
transported  by  invisible  hands  from  a 
little  table  in  a  far  corner  of  the  room 
and  deposited  on  a  large  table  in  front  of 
Morselli. 

One  of  the  most  amazing  of  the  phe- 
nomena was  the  levitation  of  Eusapia 
Paladino  together  with  her  chair.  The 
combined  report  of  the  assembled  scien- 
tists says:  ^'Suddenly  Professors  Mor- 
selli and  Porro  perceived  that  Eusapia 
had  been  raised,  along  with  her  chair, 
and  carried  up  to  a  level  above  that  of 
the  surface  of  the  table,  upon  which  she 
redescended  in  such  a  way  that  her  feet 
and  the  two  front  legs  of  the  chair  rested 
on  the  surface  of  the  table,  which  was 
partially  broken.  Meanwhile  the  medi- 
um moaned  as  if  intensely  frightened  and 
asked  to  be  put  back  with  her  chair  on 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        131 

the  floor.  But  almost  instantly  she  was 
carried  up  again  with  the  chair,  and  this 
levitation  lasted  for  some  seconds,  so 
that  M.  de  Albertis  and  Professor  Porro, 
without  preconcerted  arrangement  and 
with  completely  simultaneous  thought, 
succeeded  in  passing  their  hands  under 
the  feet  of  the  medium  and  of  the  chair. 
Shortly  afterwards,  Eusapia,  still  seated 
redescended  on  to  the  table ;  she  was  held 
by  those  to  right  and  left  of  her;  the 
chair  was  pushed  or  thrown  down  back- 
wards on  the  floor,  and  the  medium, 
seized  by  several  of  those  present,  whilst 
still  moaning,  was  carried  to  the  floor 
and  seated  again  in  her  place." 

Porro  insists  that  the  levitation  was  of 
such  a  nature  that  the  result  could  not 
have  possibly  been  brought  about  by 
artifice.  ^'Eusapia,"  he  says,  "was  ac- 
tually drawn  up  and  sustained  in  a  posi- 


132        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

tion  absolutely  contrary  to  static  laws,  by 
an  invisible  force,  inexplicable  in  the 
present  state  of  our  knowledge  of  phys- 
ics." 

At  another  sitting  held  at  the  house  of 
Count  Verdun,  in  Turin,  at  which  Foa, 
Mosso,  Aggazoti,  and  other  scientists 
were  present,  a  seventeen-pound  table 
rose  in  the  air,  floated,  descended,  and 
then,  to  the  utter  mystification  of  the  be- 
holders was  torn  to  pieces  by  invisible 
hands  before  their  eyes.  This  took  place 
in  a  strong  red  light;  every  movement 
could  be  followed. 

These  are  a  very  few  of  the  hundreds 
of  phenomena  noted  by  the  assembled 
scientists.  At  all  of  the  sittings  Eusapia 
Paladino's  hands  and  feet  were  tightly 
held,  and  sometimes  bound  with  strong 
cords.  Specially  devised  scientific  ap- 
paratus was  also  installed  in  the  room 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        133 

to  note  any  possible  fraud.  Morselli, 
regarding  these  phenomena,  observes 
that  they  are  the  most  marvelous  of  all 
mediumistic  phenomena,  because  they 
seem  to  transcend  the  ordinary  physical 
laws,  and  are  therefore  the  most  liable  to 
suspicion,  and  require  the  greatest  evi- 
dence for  proof.  The  general  public 
which  hears  them  described  and  cannot 
see  them  in  action,  does  not  believe  them. 
It  looks  upon  them  as  gross  frauds  or 
illusions  of  judgment. 

''This  was  my  state  of  mind  for  years," 
Morselli  points  out.  "But  now  I  am 
convinced  that  nearly  all  of  these  phe- 
nomena are  genuine." 


CHAPTER  VI 

MUNSTERBERG  AND  PALADINO 

AVERY  remarkable  example  of  the 
credulity  of  the  incredulous  is  the 
universal  acclaim  with  which  the  so- 
called  expose  of  Eusapia  Paladino  by 
Professor  Hugo  Miinsterberg  has  been 
received.  The  publishers  of  this  volume, 
being  personally  acquainted  with  Mr. 
Hereward  Carrington,  had  doubts  as  to 
the  accuracy  of  the  report.  They  be- 
lieve, as  Professor  Miinsterberg  stated  in 
his  article  in  The  Metropolitan  Mag- 
azine, that  Mr.  Carrington  is  an  honest 
investigator  and  wrote  to  him  for  his  ex- 
planation. Mr.  Carrington  had  been 
sent  to  Italy  by  the  British  Society  for 

134 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        135 

Psychical  Research  to  investigate  the  so- 
called  phenomena  by  Paladino.  He  is 
an  expert  prestidigitateur;  he  has  been  as- 
sociated with  Professor  Hyslop  for  some 
time  in  the  investigation  of  psychical 
phenomena  and  he  was  well  equipped  for 
the  task  which  he  undertook.  His  ex- 
perience was  such  that  he  was  forced  to 
agree  with  the  many  other  scientists  who 
believe  that  the  phenomena  by  Paladino 
cannot  be  explained  by  fraud.  In  order 
that  American  psychologists  might  have 
an  opportunity  to  pass  judgment  on  the 
phenomena  he  arranged  with  Paladino  to 
come  to  the  United  States.  It  was  his 
original  intention  to  limit  her  audiences 
to  scientific  investigators  of  psychical 
phenomena.  When  Paladino  landed, 
Mr.  Carrington  announced  that  if  it  were 
possible,  he  would  keep  her  away  from  all 
newspaper  men.     The  agents  of  the  press, 


136        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

however,  were  very  persistent  in  their 
hunt  for  her  and  he  finally  arranged  to 
give  a  free  seance  before  newspaper  rep- 
resentatives. 

There  was  probably  not  a  more  indig- 
nant man  in  the  world  than  Mr.  Car- 
rington  when  Professor  Miinsterberg's 
article  appeared  in  the  Metropolitan 
Magazine  and  he  had  every  reason  to  be 
indignant.  The  last  he  had  heard  from 
Professor  Miinsterberg  was  when  the 
Professor  had  left  the  seance.  He  had 
been  invited  by  Mr.  Carrington  to  inves- 
tigate Paladino  so  that  when  the  scientific 
series  commenced  he  would  have  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  facts  to  be  investigated.  In 
leaving,  Professor  Miinsterberg  had  ex- 
pressed himself  as  very  much  impressed 
with  the  phenomena;  he  made  no  men- 
tion of  any  fraud;  on  the  contrary  he 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        137 

said  that  he  had  a  feeling  of  faintness 
which  he  gave  as  his  reason  for  leaving. 
The  publishers  submitted  these  claims  to 
Professor  Miinsterberg  and  advised  him 
that  they  were  about  to  publish  them  in 
this  book.  At  the  same  time  he  was 
given  the  opportunity  to  reply.  He 
thanked  the  publishers  for  the  courtesy, 
but  said  that  he  had  nothing  to  add  to 
what  he  had  already  written.  Those  who 
are  acquainted  with  all  the  facts  in  the 
case  agree  that  Professor  Miinsterberg 
has  said  either  too  much  or  too  little  in 
this  case,  for  his  own  reputation. 

If,  as  he  stated,  he  believed  Mr.  Car- 
rington  to  be  honest;  if  he  believed  that 
Mr.  Carrington  was  really  seeking  for 
an  honest  explanation  of  the  Paladino 
phenomena,  then  it  would  have  been 
courteous  to  have  apprised  him  of  his 


138        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

suspicions  rather  than  to  sell  them  to  a 
magazine  in  the  form  of  a  sensational 
article,  unsupported  by  anything  but 
Professor  M (ins terb erg's  own  word  and 
lacking  consistency  even  in  its  own  state- 
ments. That  his  statements  are  not  con- 
sistent will,  we  think,  be  conceded  by 
every  reader  of  Mr.  Carrington's 

REPLY  TO  PROFESSOR  MUNSTERBERG 

It  is  probable  that  Professor  Miinster- 
berg's  article  in  the  February  Metro- 
politan Magazine  has  proved  to  many 
thousands  of  persons  in  America  that 
Eusapia  Paladino  is  nothing  more  than 
a  common  fraud;  that  her  trickery  is 
now  ^'exposed,"  and  that  all  attempt  at 
scientific  investigation  must,  of  course, 
be  dropped  immediately.  Nothing  of 
the  sort,  however,  has  occurred.  If  Prof. 
Miinsterberg's  article  be  examined  in  de- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        139 

tail,  it  will  be  found  to  be  full  of  self- 
evident  contradictions. 

(i)  Prof.  Miinsterberg  admits  that  he 
himself  is  incompetent  to  investigate  a 
case  of  this  character;  yet  he  has  under- 
taken to  decide  upon  the  case  after  two 
sittings, — ^when  his  scientific  colleagues  in 
Europe  (after  studying  her  for  twenty 
years)  have  decided  that  the  majority  of 
the  phenomena  are  genuine — and  this  not 
after  a  mere  cursory  examination,  but 
after  having  thoroughly  tested  the 
medium  w^ith  ingenious  mechanical  de- 
vices of  all  kinds. 

(2)  Prof.  Miinsterberg  states  that  he 
believes  Eusapia  to  be  unconscious  of  the 
fraud  she  herself  produces,  yet,  a  little 
later  on  in  his  paper,  he  accuses  her  of 
having  prepared  an  ingenious  mechan- 
ical device,  by  means  of  which  Eusapia 


140        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

could  cause  cold  air  to  blow  from  a  cer- 
tain point  on  her  scalp,  beneath  her  hair, 
etc.  These  two  statements  do  not  seem 
to  agree.  It  is,  of  course,  preposterous 
to  suppose  for  a  moment  that  such  a  con- 
trivance (including  metal  tubes  running 
up  her  neck,  beneath  her  hair,  etc.),  could 
have  been  overlooked  for  years  by  in- 
vestigators who  were  always  on  the  look- 
out for  just  such  a  contrivance. 

(3)  Prof.  Miinsterberg  admits  at  the 
beginning  of  his  article  that  he  saw  cer- 
tain movements  of  the  table  in  full  light 
that  he  could  not  account  for;  yet,  at  its 
conclusion,  he  says  that  all  Paladino's 
phenomena  are  fraud  and  trickery  and 
nothing  else.  Again  his  statements  do 
not  seem  to  agree! 

(4)  Prof.  Miinsterberg  tells  us  that  he 
has  always  been  interested  in  abnormal 
psychology  and  in  hysteria.     In  another 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        141 

place,  he  tells  us  that  Eusapia  presents 
evidences  of  hysteria  and  of  a  split  per- 
sonality; yet  finally  he  tells  us  that  he  will 
have  nothing  more  to  do  v^ith  her.  One 
vs^ould  be  tempted  to  ask,  why? — since 
on  his  own  showing  this  should  be  a  case 
after  his  own  heart. 

(5)  As  to  the  "foot  grabbing  inci- 
dent," this  is  really  the  only  definite 
point  made  in  Prof.  Munsterberg's  whole 
article,  and  is  due  largely  to  an  accident. 
Earlier  in  the  evening,  Eusapia  had  asked 
her  sitters  whether  they  wished  to  tie  her 
feet  with  rope,  and  they  had  replied  that 
they  did  not.  If  only  this  had  been  done, 
this  famous  incident  would  never  have 
happened.  Then  what  would  have  be- 
come of  Prof.  Miinsterberg?  If  only 
Eusapia  had  been  tied!  But  she  was  not, 
and  the  seance  progressed.  It  is  asserted 
that,  at  a  certain  moment,  Eusapia's  left 


142        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

foot  was  grasped  by  one  of  the  sitters, 
lying  upon  the  floor,  partly  within  the 
cabinet,  and  hidden  from  Eusapia  by  the 
darkness,  and  by  the  cabinet  curtain, 
which  had  blown  out  over  him. 

Granting  the  strict  accuracy  of  this  ac- 
count, what  has  been  proved?  Probably 
that  Eusapia  attempted  to  produce  phe- 
nomena fraudulently,  with  a  free  mem- 
ber. Every  group  of  sitters  in  turn  (our- 
selves included)  knows  very  well  that  she 
will  resort  to  such  devices  if  she  is  al- 
lowed to  do  so;  and  Eusapia  frequently 
says  to  her  sitters,  ^'Hold  me  tight,  con- 
trol me  well,  for  if  you  do  not  I  shall 
probably  attempt  to  produce  phenomena 
myself  in  a  more  or  less  automatic  man- 
ner." What  could  be  fairer  than  this? 
Eusapia  warns  her  sitters  beforehand 
that  she  has  this  tendency  to  cheat  in  her 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        143 

trance-like  condition,  if  she  is  not  pre- 
vented from  doing  so.  For  the  same 
reason,  doubtless,  she  asked  to  be  tied. 
It  is  quite  possible,  also,  that  Eusapia 
was  merely  kicking  to  and  fro  with  her 
foot  under  her  own  chair,  as  she  often 
does  when  distant  phenomena  are  pro- 
duced,— sympathetic  muscular  twitch- 
ings  which  have  often  been  observed 
when  it  was  perfectly  evident  that  there 
was  no  contact  possible  between  the 
medium's  body  and  the  object  moved. 

Further,  the  shorthand  report  of  this 
seance  shows  us  that,  at  the  time  this  foot 
was  grabbed,  both  Eusapia's  knees  were 
being  held  by  the  controller  on  the  right, 
while  Professor  Miinsterberg  himself 
was  holding  both  her  hands.  This  being 
so,  I  ask,  how  far  can  anyone  under  such 
circumstances,     reach     backward     with 


144i        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

either  foot,  without  being  detected  or 
without  displacing  the  knees  that  are  be- 
ing held? 

Prof.  Miinsterberg  asserts  that  the 
touches  upon  his  arm  and  side  were  pro- 
duced by  the  toes  of  Eusapia's  left  foot. 
He  had  not  the  audacity  to  say  that  they 
were  produced  by  the  medium's  head — ■ 
(which  was  perfectly  visible)  nor  by  her 
hands — both  of  which  he  himself  was 
holding  at  the  time ;  nor  by  any  mechan- 
ical contrivance;  and  his  only  recourse 
was  to  assert  (without  the  slightest 
shadow  of  proof)  that  the  touches  were 
produced  by  the  toes  of  her  left  foot. 
Apart  from  the  difficulties  presented  by 
the  fact  that  these  touches  were  experi- 
enced when  both  Eusapia's  knees  were 
held  under  the  table;  apart  from  the  fact 
that  they  have  often  been  experienced 
when    Eusapia's    feet    were    tied    with 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        145 

rope,  to  the  floor,  to  her  chair,  or  to  the 
feet  of  her  controllers;  apart  from  the 
fact  that  it  has  often  been  sufficiently 
light  to  see  that  Eusapia  did  nothing  of 
the  kind;  apart  from  the  fact  that  Eu- 
sapia would  have  had  to  slip  her  foot 
out  of  her  shoe,  in  order  to  produce  these 
touches — while,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  her 
high  laced  shoe  was  not  undone — there  is 
this  other  trifling  difficulty  in  accepting 
Prof.  Miinsterberg's  explanation  of  the 
facts:  that,  a  minute  or  two  after  this 
"foot  grabbing"  episode,  Eusapia  placed 
her  left  foot  and  leg  across  Prof.  Miins- 
terberg's knees  (as  the  stenographic 
record  shows)  and  that  under  these  con- 
ditions, Professor  Miinsterberg  was 
again  touched  on  the  left  arm  and  side — 
he  still  holding  both  the  medium's  hands, 
and  her  head  still  being  clearly  visible. 
If  anyone  persists  in  believing,  in  face 


14f6        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

of  this  evidence,  that  Eusapia  produced 
the  touches  in  the  manner  postulated  by 
Professor  Miinsterberg,  there  is,  of 
course,  nothing  more  to  be  said — except, 
perhaps,  that  we  might,  in  common  hon- 
esty, ask  him  to  repeat  the  phenomena 
under  the  same  conditions,  or  to  find  a 
contortionist  who,  with  his  right  foot, 
can  touch  the  side  of  a  person  sitting  on 
his  left,  his  knees  being  held  beneath  the 
table ! 

Those  who  have  attended  seances  with 
Eusapia  Paladino  will  pay,  of  course,  not 
the  slightest  attention  to  Professor  Muns- 
terberg's  article,  or  to  the  absurd  sug- 
gestions which  it  contains,  but  it  is  that 
vast  bulk  of  the  American  public  who 
have  not  attended  seances,  that  will  be  in- 
fluenced by  an  article  of  this  character. 
Popular  sentiment  being  all  on  his  side, 
it  is  impossible  to  offset  the  effects  of  such 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        147 

an  attack  by  a  mere  counter-argument. 
One  can  but  show  that  the  explanations 
offered  do  not  explain,  and  that  the  state- 
ments contained  in  the  article  do  not 
agree  with  one  another,  or,  in  many  cases, 
coincide  with  actual  fact.  Even  if  fraud 
were  clearly  proven  on  this  occasion, 
what  would  have  been  established? 
Merely  that  Eusapia  cheats  whenever  she 
can  (which  all  her  investigators  have 
known  all  the  time)  and  that  this  one 
phenomenon  must  consequently  be  dis- 
carded as  evidence  of  any  supernormal 
power.  It  does  not  in  any  way  prove 
that  the  rest  of  her  phenomena  are  fraud- 
ulent, or  that  the  case  must  be  rejected  in 
toto — merely  on  the  strength  of  this  one 
fact.  Let  us  examine  the  case  as  a  whole 
— bearing  in  mind  all  the  phenomena 
that  have  been  presented,  not  only  those 
occurring  during  her  American  visit,  but 


148        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

those  in  the  past;  and  when  this  has  been 
done,  I  think  that  any  fair-minded  critic 
will  realize  that  Professor  Miinsterberg's 
so-called  ^'expose"  is  far  from  being  such 
in  reality;  that  it  presents  evidence  of  no 
new  form  of  trickery,  and  that  the  case  is 
as  far  from  being  ''explained  away"  or 
shown  to  be  due  to  simple  fraud  as  it  has 
ever  been.  Indeed,  the  American  sit- 
tings may  be  said  to  have  added  much  to- 
wards proving  the  supernormal  char- 
acter of  these  manifestations.  This,  I 
think,  the  evidence,  when  presented,  will 
show. 

Hereward  Carrington. 


CHAPTER  VII 

BOTTAZZI'S   EXPERIENCE   WITH   PALADINO 

PROFESSOR  Filippo  Bottazzi,  Di- 
rector of  the  Institute  of  Physiology 
of  the  Royal  University  of  Naples,  in  an 
article  entitled  ^'In  the  Unexplored  Re- 
gions of  Human  Biology"  in  the  Revista 
d'ltalia,  gives  a  detailed  account  of 
seven  seances  with  Eusapia  Paladino. 
These  took  place  in  the  laboratory  of 
the  Institute  under  the  strictest  scrutiny. 
None  of  Paladino's  friends  were  present 
and  she  submitted  herself  to  every  de- 
mand of  the  investigators.  Mechanical 
devices,  located  in  the  adjoining  room 
and  connected  by  electricity,  recorded 
the  pressing  down  of  a  telegraph  key  and 
the  ticks  of  the  instrument.     Professor 

149 


150        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Bottazzi  admits  the  existence  of  the  phe- 
nomena but  does  not  accept  the  spiritistic 
hypothesis  as  the  explanation  of  the  same. 
He  thinks  that  the  medium  has  the 
power  of  forming  fluidic  appendeci  or 
arms  which  duplicate  the  movements  of 
the  medium's  real  arms.  A  translation 
of  parts  of  two  of  the  sittings  is  here 
given  and  also  Professor  Bottazzi's  de- 
fense of  those  who  believe  in  the  reality 
of  the  Paladino  phenomena. 

'^Galeotti,  Scarpa  and  I  had  agreed 
that  at  this  sitting  we  must  discover  any 
fraud  if  there  were  any,  and  eliminate 
every  doubt  from  our  minds.  On  this 
account,  we  had  placed  all  the  objects  in 
the  cabinet  within  reach  of  Paladino's 
hands,  and  a  lamp  with  which  to  illumi- 
nate the  interior  at  the  opportune  mo- 
ment.    Galeotti  and  I  were  in  charge  of 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        151 

the  arms  of  the  medium  for  almost  the 
whole  of  the  sitting  and  we  were  deter- 
mined that  nothing  should  be  substituted 
for  them.  Scarpa  assumed  the  responsi- 
bility of  leaving  from  time  to  time  the 
ring  of  sitters  to  place  himself  at  the 
point  at  which  he  thought  he  could  exer- 
cise the  greatest  vigilance.  I  placed  my- 
self at  the  left  of  Paladino  (she  is  left- 
handed  and  works  by  preference  with 
the  left  hand)  and  I  did  not  separate  my- 
self from  her  for  one  single  instant. 
Galeotti  was  at  the  right. 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  sitting,  Pal- 
adino, as  if  she  understood  our  sus- 
picions, called  Scarpa  near  to  her.  He 
went,  and  placed  himself  between  me  and 
the  medium  and  passed  one  arm  around 
her  back,  redoubling  in  this  way,  the 
watchfulness  on  the  left  side,  where  there 
was  the  most  danger  of  the  hands  being 


152        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

freed.  The  sitting  began  at  nine  o'clock 
precisely.  Eusapia  was  in  good  humor. 
DeAmicis  was  a  little  late.  He  arrived 
almost  at  the  moment  when  John  King 
revealed  his  presence.  We  invited  the 
table  to  salute  the  newcomer.  Suddenly 
it  began  to  move,  rose  up,  struck  blows 
upon  the  floor  and  moving  up  towards 
him,  pushed  him,  with  little  courtesy 
backwards. 

THE  MANDOLIN   EPISODE 

The  mandolin  is  at  first  touched  and 
then  strummed.  Eusapia,  seconding  a 
request  from  DeAmicis,  wishes  to  take  it 
and  put  it  upon  the  table  and  com- 
mences with  her  shoulder,  with  the  arm 
and  the  left  hand,  to  make  a  slight  move- 
ment that  I  notice  and  follow  diligently, 
similar  to  those  which  the  same  arm 
would  have  made  had  it  been  free  and 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        153 

not  able  to  really  grasp  the  instrument, 
which  was  situated  on  the  left  side  of  her. 
In  the  meantime,  Scarpa,  coming  close  to 
me,  placed  himself  directly  behind  the 
back  of  my  chair  and  distinctly  saw  the 
mandolin  rise,  fall  back  again,  rise  again 
WITHOUT  ANY  HANDS  TOUCHING  IT,  with 
light  enough  for  us  to  discern  every 
movement  of  Paladino's  arms.  Paladino 
said  to  me,  bearing  my  right  arm  with 
her  left  towards  the  floor  in  the  direction 
of  the  mandolin,  'Let  us  take  it — 
help  me,'  and  strove  to  grasp  and  raise 
it. 

In  the  meantime,  the  mandolin,  cov- 
ered by  the  curtains,  rose  a  little  from  the 
floor  but  fell  down  again,  and  Eusapia 
exclaimed  in  her  dialect  with  visible 
anguish,  'It  has  passed  away  from  me,' 
but  the  failure  seemed  to  stimulate  her. 
Again  she  attempted  to  raise  it,  but  with- 


154        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

out  success,  and  as  it  pained  me  to  see 
her,  I  tried  to  persuade  her  to  give  up 
these  vain  attempts  to  place  the  instru- 
ment upon  the  table;  but  she  seemed  to 
be  obsessed  by  this  idea  and  continued  to 
strive  without  paying  any  attention  to  me. 
It  is  absolutely  necessary  to  have  had 
Paladino's  fingers  in  one's  hand,  as  I  had 
them  that  evening,  to  convince  oneself 
how  the  rising  and  the  falling  of  the  man- 
dolin to  the  floor,  the  playing  of  the 
strings,  etc.,  all  are  synchronous  with  the 
very  delicate  movements  of  her  fingers, 
with  the  pulling  and  the  pushing  of  the 
hand  of  the  medium  as  if  it  were  di- 
rected by  a  will  conscious  of  the  effect 
to  be  obtained.  They  were  not  irreg- 
ular, impulsive,  disordered  movements. 
They  were  precise  and  corresponded  with 
those  of  a  finger,  or  fingers ;  identical  with 
those  which  it  is  customary  for  one  to 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        155 

make  who  wishes  the  strings  to  vibrate 
with  precision  and  delicacy.  There 
were  two  of  us  with  the  gaze  fixed  upon 
the  mandolin,  Scarpa  and  I,  and  we  can 
affirm  with  certainty  that  the  instrument, 
well  lighted  by  the  lamp  above  it,  was 
not  touched  by  the  visible  hands  of  Eusa- 
pia  that  were,  at  least,  sixty  centimeters 
from  it,  but  that  it  moved  by  itself,  as 
if  by  enchantment  it  had  been  furnished 
with  organs  of  motion;  and  it  seemed  as 
we  looked  at  it,  as  if  it  were  the  carcass 
of  some  monstrous  reptile  to  which  life 
had  returned.  It  is  impossible  to  de- 
scribe the  impression  made  upon  one  who 
sees  an  inanimate  object  move,  AND  MOVE 
NOT  FOR  A  MOMENT  ONLY,  BUT  FOR  MANY 
MINUTES  CONTINUOUSLY,  move  with- 
out anyone  touching  it,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  a  mysterious  force,  while  all  is 
silence  around,  among  the  other  immo- 


156        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

bile  objects.  Finally  the  mandolin  is 
left  in  peace.  Paladino  was  very  much 
dissatisfied  with  it.  I,  no.  Because  the 
simple  moving  of  the  mandolin  would 
have  deprived  us  of  the  long  and  minute 
examination  which  we  were  able  to  make 
of  the  correspondence  between  the  in- 
tentional movements  of  the  medium  and 
the  movements  of  the  objects  upon  which 
were  applied  her  invisible  power. 
****** 

Eusapia  opened  my  right  hand  and 
spread  out  the  three  middle  fingers  and 
pressing  them  down,  and  rubbing  upon 
the  table  with  the  fleshy  part  underneath 
said  to  me  in  a  low  voice,  'How  hard  it 
is.  What  is  it?'  I  did  not  understand, 
and  she,  'There  upon  the  chair;  what  is 
it?'  'It  is  chalk,'  I  hastened  to  reply» 
'Make  an  impression  of  the  face.' 
'No,'  she  replied,   'it  is  hard;   it  is  too 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        157 

hard;  take  it  away.'  'Also  the  chair?' 
I  asked.  'No,  leave  the  chair.'  Some- 
body left  the  chair  for  a  moment  to  sat- 
isfy Eusapia's  desire,  looked  upon  the 
plate,  and  saw  the  impression  of  the  three 
fingers.  At  a  more  accurate  examina- 
tion made  the  following  day,  we  saw  that 
the  three  imprints  seemed  to  be  made 
by  the  sliding  of  the  three  fingers. 
Evidently  this  corresponded  to  the  analo- 
gous moving  of  Paladino's  left  hand 
pressed  upon  my  fingers  upon  the  table. 
Now,  Eusapia  commenced  to  "work" 
upon  the  chair  freed  from  the  weight  of 
the  plate.  She  placed  her  left  foot 
against  my  right,  and  the  right  against 
the  left  of  Galeotti  and  made  a  pushing 
movement.  The  chair  moved,  came  up 
to  the  table  and  began  to  rise.  Behold  it 
mounting  up  on  the  table  with  the  back 
inclined  towards   the   front,   covered  in 


158        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

part  by  the  curtain;  after  many  trials  it 
mounted  on  top.  We  all  exclaimed  in 
chorus,  ^Bravo,  bravo!'  Some  one  asked, 
^Shall  we  carry  it  away?'  ^No,  no,' 
replied  Eusapia.  ^Leave  me  the  chair.' 
While  the  chair  was  upon  the  table, 
other  phenomena  happened  which  I 
will  describe.  At  a  certain  movement, 
however,  the  chair  began  to  move  again, 
slid  towards  the  angle  of  the  table  that 
was  between  me  and  Paladino  and  fell  to 
the  floor  in  the  same  direction,  upon  the 
mandolin.,  Later,  Scarpa  used  it  with- 
out objection  from  Paladino.  It  seemed 
as  if  she  had  forgotten  it.  It  is  singular, 
however,  that  suddenly  after  any  object 
is  borne  upon  the  table,  Eusapia  is  angry 
and  seems  to  suffer  if  anyone  touches  it 
or  tries  to  carry  it  away,  as  if  it  were  a 
part  of  herself,  or  as  if  to  the  object,  for  a 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        159 

certain  time,  there  adhered  some  part  of 
her  very  sensitive  body. 

THE  ELECTRIC  SWITCH 

But  now  the  mediumistic  appendici 
of  Eusapia  penetrate  into  the  interior  of 
the  cabinet  after  exercising  themselves 
upon  the  objects  on  the  outside  and  com- 
mence the  work  which  we  hear,  but 
which  we  cannot  see.  I  beg  all  not 
to  distract  the  medium  with  demands 
for  touchings,  apparitions,  etc.,  but  to 
concentrate  their  desire  and  will  upon 
the  things  alone  that  I  ask  to  have 
done.  The  medium  throws  away  the 
trumpet,  the  brush,  the  ebony  cane,  which 
fall  upon  the  floor,  and  which  after  being 
moved  about  are  left  in  peace.  The  cord 
of  the  inside  lamp  which  had  fallen  to 
the  floor  when  the  chair  was  borne  upon 


160        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

the  table,  and  was  then  hung  upon  the 
back  of  Galeotti's  chair  is  now  drawn 
from  the  interior  of  the  cabinet  and  then 
thrown  with  the  electric  switch,  violently 
upon  the  table.  I  hasten  to  beg  that  no 
one  will  touch  it,  but  I  do  not  explain 
that  pressing  it  will  light  a  lamp  in  the 
cabinet,  something  which  is  only  known 
to  Galeotti,  Scarpa  and  myself.  The 
electric  switch  is  thrown  upon  the  floor. 
Eusapia  is  in  a  state  of  extraordinary 
tension;  she  looks  vacantly  into  space  as 
if  she  were  searching  for  something 
which  she  cannot  find.  Her  attitude  is 
that  of  one  who,  blindfolded,  gropes  with 
the  hands  into  space  to  find  the  object  for 
which  one  is  looking.  At  a  certain  mo- 
ment, Eusapia  takes  the  index  finger  of 
my  right  hand  that  has  almost  the  same 
form  as  the  electric  switch,  presses  it  with 
her  finger  and,  behold,   a   ray  of  light 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        161 

illumines  the  room  from  the  inside  of  the 
mediumistic  cabinet,  and  an  exclamation 
of  content  escapes  from  the  mouth  of 
Eusapia.  It  is  easier  to  imagine  than  to 
describe  the  astonishment  of  those  who 
could  not  understand  that  which  had 
happened.  I  exclaimed,  'Bravo,  bravo! 
Do  it  again.'  And  the  others,  'Bravo 
what?  What  do  you  mean?'  'What 
has  she  done?'  And  I  explain  that  the 
electric  switch  thrown  upon  the  table  is 
connected  with  an  electric  lamp,  placed 
high  in  the  cabinet;  that  Eusapia,  with 
one  of  her  invisible  hands  has  searched 
and  then  found  the  electric  switch  after 
having  thrown  it  again  away  from  the 
table,  and  has  pressed  with  that  hand, 
while  with  the  finger  of  the  visible  hand 
she  pressed  my  index  finger  and  has  thus 
turned  on  the  light  which  has  filled  them 
with  wonder." 


l62        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

SEVENTH,  SITTING 

^'In  the  usual  room  of  the  physiological 
library  at  9  o'clock  there  were  present, 
Professors  Bottazzi,  Galeotti  and  Scarpa, 
and  beside  Mrs.  Bottazzi,  Dr.  Gaetano 
Jappelli,  professor  in  charge  of  technical 
physiology  in  this  university  and  coadju- 
tor in  the  Institute  of  Physiology,  and 
Dr.  Gennaro  d'Errico,  coadjutor  in  the 
same  Institute. 

The  mediumistic  cabinet  is  the  same  as 
in  the  7th  sitting. 

Upon  the  table  in  the  inside,  are  to  be 
found,  among  other  objects,  a  trumpet,  a 
vase  of  flowers,  a  telegraph  key,  etc. 

In  the  room,  a  photographic  camera  is 
pointed  at  the  mediumistic  table,  and  a 
bag  of  magnesia  is  placed  so  that  at  a 
certain  moment,  touching  an  electric  but- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        163 

ton  will  make  red  hot  a  platinum  wire 
in  the  middle  of  the  powder  and  produce 
a  flash. 

We  have  photographed  in  this  way 
two  small  risings  of  the  table  together 
with  the  people  forming  the  chain. 

Two  iron  rings  are  fixed  in  the  floor 
at  the  side  of  the  two  table  legs  nearest 
the  medium;  two  very  strong  ribbons 
lead  from  the  rings  and  above  are  wound 
around  and  sealed  to  Eusapia's  wrist, 
each  in  a  double  knot.  Upon  each  knot 
of  the  ribbons  there  is  placed  a  lead  seal, 
in  the  same  way  in  which  are  sealed  the 
cords  of  a  sack  or  of  the  doors  of  a  rail- 
road car.  The  sealing  is  done  in  the 
presence  of  all  of  us.  The  seal  bears  on 
one  side,  the  letters  M  E^  and  on  the 
other  side,  the  word  Napoli.  Poor  Eu- 
sapia   allows   herself  to  be   tied  like   a 


164)        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

criminal,  not  without  protesting  that  she 
does  it  in  honor  of  science,  in  the  full 
security  of  her  own  honesty. 

We  had  arranged  that  the  length  of 
the  ribbons  should  be  such  that  in  what- 
ever position  her  hands  should  be  placed, 
they  would  never  be  able  to  reach  any 
of  the  objects  placed  in  the  cabinet. 
Here  is  the  distance  measured  before  the 
commencement  of  the  sitting: 

To  the  right  of  Paladino: 

Distance  from  the  right  ring  to  Eu- 
sapia's  wrist  m.  1.07. 

Distance  from  the  right  ring  to  the 
vase  of  flowers  m.  1.47. 

Distance  from  the  right  ring  to  the 
trumpet  m.  1.50. 

To  the  left: 

Distance  from  the  left  ring  to  Eu- 
sapia's  wrist  m.  1.20. 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        165 

Distance  from  the  left  ring  to  the  vase 
of  flowers  m.  1.89. 

Distance  from  the  left  ring  to  the 
trumpet  m.  180. 

As  can  be  seen,  the  objects  on  the  right 
were  distant  not  less  than  40  centimeters 
(15.7  inches)  and  on  the  left  they  were 
farther  still  from  Eusapia's  hand. 

At  the  greatest  stretching  of  the  two 
ribbons,  and  of  Eusapia's  fingers,  and  in 
the  most  fatal  position,  the  fingers  alone 
of  the  right  hand  could  just  touch  with 
the  ends  the  edge  of  the  inside  table, 
which  was  securely  fastened  to  the  wall, 
and  were  distant  at  least  12  centimeters 
(4.7  inches)  from  the  vase  of  flowers  and 
the  trumpet.  The  ribbons  could  not  be 
stretched.  No  matter  how  much  we 
tried,  we  could  not  stretch  them  any  ap- 
preciable length. 


166        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

At  the  end  of  the  sitting  we  all  veri- 
fied before  cutting  the  seals  at  each  of 
Eusapia's  wrists,  that  the  knots  and  the 
four  lead  seals  were  intact.  Japelli  as- 
sured himself  that  the  loops  were  so 
tight  that  it  would  not  be  possible  to  get 
the  hands  through  them.  Omitting  to 
describe  the  carrying  to  the  outside  table 
of  a  bottle  full  of  water,  two  chairs 
(twice,  etc.),  the  many  touchings,  the 
tappings,  the  apparitions  of  hands,  of 
colossal  fists  in  the  midst  of  us,  I  will 
record  especially  three  phenomena  that 
were,  for  us,  the  most  important. 

I.  The  hands  and  feet  of  Eusapia 
(even  though  it  was  not  necessary)  were 
in  the  custody  of,  the  left  of  Professor 
Japelli,  the  right  of  Mrs.  Bottazzi,  who 
from  time  to  time  testified  to  the  position 
and  the  movements  of  the  limbs  of  the 
medium.     I  was  on  the  right  of  my  wife. 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        167 

Eusapia  said  to  me,  'Extend  your  arm 
around  the  back  of  your  wife.'  I  obey, 
and  behold,  I  feel  coming  out  from  the 
curtain,  the  trumpet,  which  I  recognize 
immediately  by  the  touch.  I  grasp  it 
and  put  it  upon  the  table. 

2.  Later,  without  any  announcement, 
there  was  felt  a  friction  of  the  curtain  on 
the  side  corresponding  to  the  right  of 
Eusapia;  the  curtain  is  moved  a  little, 
while  from  the  same  side  is  advanced  the 
vase  of  flowers.  As  the  two  custodians 
(Mrs.  Bottazzi  and  Dr.  d'Errico)  have 
been  ordered  not  to  break  the  contact 
with  the  hands  of  Eusapia  for  any  reason 
whatsoever,  I  myself,  who  am  the  one  in 
the  chain  nearest  to  that  point,  extend 
my  right  hand  and  grasp  the  vase  of 
flowers  and  put  it  upon  the  table  without 
any  water  being  spilled. 

The  trumpet  and  the  vase  of  flowers, 


l68        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

as  I  have  said,  were  at  such  a  distance 
that  the  hands  of  Eusapia  could  not  even 
touch  them.  The  objects  being  at  a  dis- 
tance of  lo  or  30  or  50  centimeters  from 
the  visible  hand  of  the  medium  amounts 
to  nothing.  That  which  is  of  impor- 
tance is  that  it  was  absolutely  impossible 
that  she  could  reach  them. 

3.  Meanwhile,  Galeotti,  who  had  con- 
trol of  Eusapia's  right  hand,  distinctly 
saw  the  disappearance  of  her  upper  right 
arm. 

^Behold,'  he  said,  *I  see  two  left 
arms,  identically  the  same.  The  one 
arm  is  upon  the  table  and  is  that  of  which 
Mrs.  Bottazzi  has  hold  of  the  hand. 
The  other  seems  to  sprout  out  from  the 
shoulder;  comes  up  to  him,  touches  him 
and  then  returns  to  incorporate  itself  in 
Eusapia's  body,  disappearing.  It  is  not 
an  hallucination.     I   am  awake.     I   am 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life       169 

entirely  conscious  of  two  visible  sensa- 
tions which  I  prove  while  Mrs.  Bottazzi 
says  that  she  is  touched.' 

Some  other  objects,  among  them  the 
telegraph  key  and  a  Marcy  receiver,  were 
not  touched,  although  we  have  insisted 
strongly,  but  have  not  secured  the 
graphic  tracings ;  but  upon  this,  I  should 
add  a  few  words. 

LIMIT  TO  EUSAPIA'S  POWERS 
Eusapia  repeatedly  said  it  was  impos- 
sible to  touch  them,  because  they  were 
placed  too  far  away,  which  is  true. 
Perhaps  because  of  the  intimacy  in 
which  she  found  herself  with  all  present, 
she  made  confessions  which  she  had 
never  made  before.  I  accent  the  pro- 
longation of  her  arms  by  means  of  which 
she  touches,  moves,  and  bears  away  the 
different  objects  and  leave  to  be  under- 


170        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Stood  that  these  prolongations  are  more 
or  less  great,  according  as  during  the  sit- 
ting, the  "fluid"  is  more  or  less  plentiful. 
That  is  that  mysterious  "mediumistic 
power"  that  she  feels  in  herself  and  of 
which  she  is  confusedly  cognizant. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  sitting,  I  had  an 
intuition  that  the  sphere  of  action  of  the 
medium  had  certain  limits  outside  of 
which  any  movable  phenomena  is  im- 
possible, and  that  such  limits  vary.  It 
may  be  said  at  the  present  time,  that  the 
objects  which  were  distant  more  than  20 
or  30  or  a  few  more  centimeters  from 
the  extreme  ends  of  Eusapia's  limbs, 
could  not  be  touched  or  moved  by 
her. 

It  seems  that  at  one  time  her  medium- 
istic  power  was  much  stronger,  but,  as  I 
have  said,  these  last  few  years  it  has  be- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        171 

come  weaker  and,  perhaps,  it  will  not  be 
long  before  it  will  be  entirely  spent. 

I  know  very  well  that  in  spite  of  the 
distance  referred  to  by  me,  some  of  the 
more  petulant  will  say: 

'See,  Paladino  took  only  the  objects 
which  were  near  her.  Those  farthest 
away  she  has  not  touched.  Who  knows 
but  what  she  succeeded  in  some  way  in 
grasping  the  first  in  spite  of  the  fasten- 
ings at  her  wrists.'* 

But  how?  The  bracelet  made  of  ribbon 
around  the  right  wrist  was  so  tight  as  not 
to  allow  anything  to  be  placed  under  it, 
at  least  the  space  was  not  more  than  a 
centimeter.  This  was  proven  before  and 
after  the  sitting.  We  placed  ourselves, 
one  after  the  other,  in  the  identical  posi- 
tion of  Eusapia  and  were  able  to  con- 
vince ourselves  that  in  the  most  favorable 


172        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

position  of  the  wrists  and  of  the  fingers 
and  allowing  the  ribbon  the  greatest  pos- 
sible tension,  we  could  not  reach  farther 
than  the  edge  of  the  table.     And  besides 
it  was  not  necessary  only  to  touch  the 
objects;  to  bear  them  towards  us,  it  was 
necessary  to  grasp  them.     A  large  glass, 
full  of  water,  is  not  borne  away  without 
spilling  a  drop  of  water,  or  a  flower,  with 
the   ends   of   two   fingers.     This   under- 
stood, the  reasons  alleged  by  Eusapia  to 
justify  her  in  the  impossibility  in  which 
she  found  herself   to   touch   the   objects 
farthest  away  with  her  mediumistic  ap- 
pendeci,  ought  not  to  be  taken  as  a  vulgar 
pretext,  but  they  have  the  same  value  as 
those  made  by  me  in  the  determinism  of 
mediumistic  phenomena. 

Let  us  confess,  then,  that  the  results  of 
this  sitting  have  made  a  very  favorable 
impression,    because    they    have    driven 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        173 

out  the  last  trace  of  doubt  or  uncertainty 
in  regard  to  the  reality  of  said  phenom- 
ena. The  surety  which  we  have  acquired 
is  of  the  same  order  as  that  which,  daily, 
we  acquire  of  the  reality  of  the  natural 
phenomena  which  we  investigate,  physi- 
cal, chemical  or  physiological. 

Now,  to  the  incredulous,  there  only  re- 
mains to  accuse  us  ourselves  of  fraud 
and  trickery.  I  should  not  be  very  much 
surprised  if  some,  more  bold  and  pre- 
tentious than  the  others,  should  dare  to 
hurl  such  an  accusation,  but  for  that  it 
would  not  disturb  in  the  least  the  seren- 
ity of  our  minds." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BOTTAZZI'S  DEFENCE  OF  PALADINO 

4  4TT  is  thoroughly  unfortunate  that  in 
J^  this  kind  of  phenomena  the  exposi- 
tion of  observed  facts  cannot  be  simple, 
plain  and  objective,  but  that  they  inevita- 
bly must  assume  a  polemic  character  or  a 
personal  one.  The  reason  lies  in  the  ex- 
traordinary character  of  the  phenomena 
themselves,  and  in  the  fact  that  the  human 
mind  is  more  conservative  than  progres- 
sive, where  every  new  idea,  that  differs 
too  much  from  the  ordinary,  disturbs  and 
provokes  a  reaction  as  much  more  strong 
as  is  extraordinary  the  idea  that  tries  to 
penetrate  and  take  root  among  others 
that    do    not    recognize    it    either    as    a 

174 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        175 

brother  or  a  sister.  To  this  reaction, 
which  certainly  takes  place  among  all 
those  who  see  mediumistic  phenomena, 
there  is  added  in  each  observer,  different 
ethical  and  sentimental  motives,  which 
contribute  strongly  to  shape  their  opinion 
and  judgment  upon  the  same  phenomena, 
to  say  nothing  of  their  attitude  towards 
other  observers.  In  respect  to  medium- 
istic phenomena,  the  great  majority  of 
cultivated  people  is  composed  of  those 
who  have  never  seen  anything.  Medi- 
ums are  much  more  scarce  than  tricksters 
and  prestidigitateurs  of  all  kinds,  and 
they  do  not  work  upon  the  platform. 
For  this  reason,  it  is  given  to  few  to  assist 
at  real  mediumistic  sittings.  Naturally, 
that  contributes  not  a  little  to  surround 
the  phenomena  with  mystery  and  to  place 
them  in  a  sinister  light;  but  this  is  not 
the  fault  of  the  medium.     I  should  say 


176        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

that  it  was  rather  the  fault  of  the  best 
prestidigitateurs  who  undertake  to  pro- 
duce mediumistic  phenomena  if  these  be 
only  tricks,  vulgar  tricks,  as  many  peo- 
ple think.  Is  it  possible  that  a  presti- 
digitateur,  who  amazes  thousands  of  peo- 
ple, is  not  capable  of  raising  a  table  or 
making  a  chair  move  in  a  way  to  make 
people  believe  they  rise  up  and  walk  of 
themselves.  The  truth  is,  that  more  than 
one  has  tried  it,  and  more  than  one  has 
been  discovered  in  fraud;  and  on  the 
other  side,  a  famous,  ''honest"  prestidigi- 
tateur,  after  having  been  present  at  ''hon- 
est" mediumistic  sittings,  had  to  confess 
that  he  could  not  reproduce  those  phe- 
nomena. These,  in  fact,  or  at  least  some 
of  them,  are  ordinarily  different  from 
those  of  the  phenomena  with  which  jug- 
glers entertain  the  public.  What  those 
"who  have  never  seen"  understand  to  be 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        177 

mediumistic  phenomena  is  a  matter  of 
indifference. 

Those  ''that  have  seen"  can  then  be 
divided  into  tv^o  groups;  those  who, 
from  these  sittings,  bring  away  the  belief 
that  everything  is  trickery,  vulgar  trick- 
ery (this  is  a  favorite  expression,  with  a 
very  strong  accent  upon  the  vulgar),  and 
they  are  the  few.  The  others,  and  they 
are  the  many,  are  those  who,  not  having 
been  able  to  discover  any  fraud,  in  spite 
of  the  most  rigorous  vigilance,  and  being 
certain  of  having  experienced  during 
the  sittings,  real  sensations  (visible,  audi- 
ble, tactile),  and  not  illusion  and  hal- 
lucination, conclude  simply  that  the  said 
mediumistic  phenomena  are  marvelous, 
worthy  not  only  of  consideration,  but  of 
study. 

Now,  it  is  worth  the  trouble  to  investi- 
gate, how  of  two  people,  both  estimable 


178        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

and  cultivated,  who  assist  at  the  same 
sittings  and  not  at  different  ones,  one  ac- 
quires a  conviction  in  one  sense  and  the 
other  in  an  opposite  one.  Let  us  see. 
If  we  were  talking  of  different  sittings, 
which  is  more  than  ordinarily  the  case, 
the  question  is  more  simple.  Every  bio- 
logical phenomenon  has  a  complex  de- 
terminism, and  upon  the  manner  of 
manifesting  itself,  influences  not  alone 
the  exterior  conditions,  but  besides  and 
above  all  the  interior  condition  of  the 
living  organism.  Now,  it  is  impossible 
that  these  conditions  should  be  identical 
in  every  experiment.  Furthermore,  it  is 
impossible  even  to  obtain  identical  re- 
sults from  experiments  which  seem  to 
have  been  made  under  the  same  condi- 
tions. Let  us  take  one  example.  You 
stimulate  with  an  electric  current  the 
vago  nerve  and  observe  the  function  of 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        179 

the  heart,  an  organ  which,  for  the  regu- 
larity of  its  workings,  has  the  most  re- 
semblance to  the  regularity  of  a  machine. 
The  normal  effect  of  the  stimulation  is 
the  arrest  of  the  cardiac  movements,  but 
the  cases  are  not  rare,  in  which  only 
rarity  of  beating  is  obtained,  or  the 
diminution  of  the  force  of  each  beat 
without  arrest,  and  in  whichever  case, 
after  stimulating  the  nerve,  the  heart 
which  beats  weakly  or  slowly,  or  does 
not  beat  at  all,  returns  in  a  little  while 
to  beat  rhythmically.  One  who  assisted 
at  a  similar  experiment,  and  is  ignorant 
of  physiology,  should  he  read  in  a  treat- 
ise on  this  subject  under  the  chapter  ^'En- 
ervation of  the  Heart,"  that  the  stimula- 
tion of  the  vago  nerve  arrested  the  heart 
in  its  dilation,  would  he  not  say  of  it, 
'It  is  not  true;  the  heart  does  not  stop 
in  that  way'?     But  the  physiologist  who 


180        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

has  seen  the  heart  stop  one  hundred  times 
to  five  times  where  it  did  not  stop, 
smiles  at  such  remark.  He  knows  by 
previous  observations  that  the  different 
effects  depend  upon  the  different  condi- 
tions in  which  the  heart  or  the  nerve  may 
be  found. 

Thus  it  is  with  the  principal  medium- 
istic  phenomena,  and  particularly  we 
wish  to  say  it  of  that  produced  by  Eu- 
sapia  Paladino.  Poor  Eusapia  is  not  a 
machine,  but  a  living  organism.  In 
hundreds  of  mediumistic  sittings,  at 
which  people  worthy  of  trust  have  been 
present,  she  has  produced  phenomena  of 
such  a  character  as  not  to  leave  any  doubt 
of  the  importance  and  reality  of  the  same 
or  of  her  honesty.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  a  few  sittings,  the  phenomena  have 
been  few,  weak,  and  such,  in  short,  as  to 
leave  the  observers  unsatisfied,  who  be- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        181 

cause  of  this  have  been  erroneously  led 
to  suppose  that  even  those  seen  by  others 
may  have  been  of  the  same  strength  and 
nature  and  that  they  have  been  exagger- 
ated by  human  credulity  and  simplicity; 
from  this  to  denouncing  as  fraud  and 
to  calling  Paladino  a  fraud  and  a  trick- 
ster, is  a  short  distance.  To  affirm 
that,  it  is  necessary  to  have  discovered 
fraud." 

FRAUD  BY  PALADINO 

^'Has  Paladino,  then,  ever  been  discov- 
ered in  fraud?  It  seems  that  she  has. 
Leaving  on  one  side  unconscious  trick- 
ery, it  seems,  however,  that  the  only 
intentional  conscious  trickery  to  which 
Eusapia  foolishly  had  resource  more 
than  once  has  been  to  make  an  object 
move  in  full  light  by  means  of  one  of  her 
hairs.     If  she  had  been  so  rascally  as  is 


182        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

said,  she  certainly  would  not  do  these 
things.  She  has  been  reproved  by  Flam- 
marion  and  by  others,  but  her  intelli- 
gence is  so  low  that  she  continues,  it 
seems,  to  divert  herself  still  with  the 
famous  hair,  trying,  I  believe,  to  deceive 
someone  who  she  feels  is  not  in  sympa- 
thy with  her,  rather  than  to  deceive  in 
the  hope  of  making  a  trick  pass  for  the 
true  thing.  I  believe  also  in  another 
possibility.  There  are  sittings  during 
which,  or  part  of  which,  Eusapia  does 
not  succeed  in  producing  any  phenomena, 
and  this,  for  me,  is  one  of  the  best  proofs 
of  the  reality  of  mediumistic  phenomena, 
when  these  have  taken  place;  and  these 
cases,  it  seems,  occur  oftener  now  that 
she  begins  to  get  old  and  to  become 
weaker.  (Who  of  us  can  assert  that 
every  day  we  are  equally  disposed  or  apt 
to  work  with  the  same  energy  and  effi- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        183 

cacy?)  But  when  she  finds  herself  in 
such  a  condition,  she  ought  to  refuse  to 
give  sittings,  one  may  say.  True.  But 
it  is  necessary  to  consider  that  she  often 
finds  herself  in  somebody  else's  house, 
where  she  has  been  called  to  ''work"; 
that  often,  persons  who  come  from  distant 
places  are  there  to  see ;  persons,  let  us  say 
it,  as  inexorable  as  the  spectators  at  a 
theatre  who,  strong  in  the  right  which 
comes  to  them  from  having  paid,  wait 
anxiously  to  see  and  to  hear.  Persons, 
moreover,  whom  we  are  obliged  to  send 
away  unsatisfied,  complaining  and  hurl- 
ing insults  like  those  of  which  we  have 
spoken  before.  Who  will  refuse  to  ad- 
mit that  Paladino  under  such  conditions, 
anxious  to  satisfy  as  much  as  she  can,  the 
hopes  of  those  persons,  sometimes  gives 
in  to  the  temptation  to  commit  a  fraud; 
to     give     as     mediumistic     phenomena, 


184?        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Others  produced  as  best  she  can  with  her 
hands  or  with  her  feet.  In  our  seven 
sittings  we  have  never  noticed  one  thing 
of  this  kind.  Eusapia  has  never  made 
use  of  expedients  of  any  kind  in  order  to 
deceive.  On  the  contrary,  she  has  never 
omitted  to  advise  us  every  time  that  she 
moved  the  table  or  the  curtain  with  her 
visible  hands ;  but  it  is  absolutely  impos- 
sible to  deny  that  under  the  conditions 
given  above  she  may  have  committed  or 
does  commit  some  little  fraud,  uncon- 
scious of  the  incalculable  harm  that  is 
done  her  reputation  and  the  true  medi- 
umistic  phenomena,  in  the  estimation  of 
the  immense  majority  of  people  who,  not 
being  present  at  the  sittings,  have  to  trust 
to  the  faithful  narration  of  those  who 
have  been  present,  in  order  to  form  any 
conviction  whatever. 

And    even    that    is    the    consequence 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        185 

partly  of  her  slight  intellectual  develop- 
ment, and  partly  because  of  the  igno- 
rance in  which,  necessarily,  she  remains 
of  the  impression  made  by  the  notices  to 
the  public  in  regard  to  fraud  (because 
she  does  not  read),  nor  of  the  smile  with 
which  some  speak  in  her  presence  of 
mediumistic  phenomena.  However  that 
may  be,  it  is  highly  unjust  to  deny  the 
reality  of  mediumistic  phenomena,  bas- 
ing the  denial  upon  the  few  cases  in 
which  the  ingenuous  and  small  frauds  of 
Paladino  have  been  observed,  and  not  to 
take  into  consideration  the  great  frauds 
of  the  tricksters  by  profession  who,  dis- 
covered once  in  their  tricks,  have  been 
obliged  to  immediately  disappear." 

MAL-OBSERVATION 

"He  who  has  observed  badly,   many 
times  is  in  a  disadvantageous  condition. 


186        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Worse  Still,  if  he  has  come  to  look  on 
with  a  prejudice  that  he  is  going  to  as- 
sist at  trickery,  which  is  the  same  as  to 
say  with  an  opinion  already  formed. 
Worse  still,  if  he  has  come  with  the 
impudent  intention  of  having  the  right, 
thinking  he  only  has  seen,  to  call  others 
imbeciles  who  do  not  believe  that  they 
have  been  tricked,  believing  also,  to  put 
in  relief  his  own  superiority  as  an  ob- 
server and  critic.  All  those,  and  others 
who,  in  denying,  are  influenced  by  mo- 
tives still  less  noble,  will  not  have  the 
power  to  diminish  the  value  of  the  now 
numerous  contrary  affirmations  of  per- 
sons who  respond  to  the  names  of 
Crookes,  Ramsay,  Lodge,  Lombroso, 
Richet,  Flammarion,  Luciani,  Morselli. 
That  is  to  say,  of  honest  scientists  whose 
fame  cannot  be  shaken  by  the  loud  laugh- 
ter of  the  few  who  seem  to  think  nega- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        187 

tion  a  sign  of  mental  superiority.  To 
those,  then,  who  deny  without  having 
seen,  affirming  a  priori  the  phenomena,  to 
be  impossible,  we  must  reply,  first  see 
and  then  we  will  discuss  with  you. 

Worthy  of  respect  are  those,  and  they 
are  not  few,  who  refuse  to  see  because 
they  fear  that  the  things  observed  may 
disturb  them  in  their  naturalistic  convic- 
tions and  the  mechanical  understanding 
of  the  world,  which  with  fatiguing  study 
and  long  meditation  they  have  succeeded 
in  forming.  I  do  not  share  their  fears, 
because  the  phenomena  seen  by  me  have 
not  disturbed  me  in  the  least,  nor  shaken 
any  of  my  naturalistic  convictions.  The 
new  knowledge  has  been  added  to  the 
old,  and  even  if  it  is  not  strictly  welded 
to  it,  at  least,  it  has  had  the  effect  of 
confirming  in  my  mind  the  sentence  of 
Leonardo,  that  ^nature  has  many  laws  of 


188        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

which  we  have  no  knowledge';  but,  in 
fine,  those  people  merit  as  much  respect  as 
those  believers  who  refuse  to  recognize 
the  principle  of  natural  science,  for  fear 
that  they  may  be  disturbed  or  shaken  in 
their  religious  faith. 

But  for  the  others,  for  that  small  num- 
ber of  ostentatious  persons  who  pretend 
with  their  few  and  unsuccessful  observa- 
tions, to  annul  the  many,  the  very  many 
observations  made  under  different  and 
often  better  conditions,  by  persons  not 
inferior  to  them  (and  often  superior)  in 
acuteness  of  wit,  in  experimental  capac- 
ity and  in  solidity  of  character,  which 
is  amply  proven  by  the  results  of 
their  life;  to  those  around  whom  read- 
ily flock  the  ignorant  and  pretentious, 
for  the  same  reasons,  that  the  praise 
of  the  throng  is  given  to  him  who 
destroys  rather  than  to  him  who  builds; 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        189 

to  him  who  trims  up  old  motives,  rather 
than  to  the  innovator.  For  them,  I,  if 
it  were  worth  the  trouble,  would  be  in- 
exorable. I  content  myself  in  saying  to 
them:  ^In  what  things  are  your  senses 
superior  to  ours?  What  proof  have  you 
given  of  superiority  of  critical  power? 
From  what  do  you  derive  your  convic- 
tions, that  you  alone,  the  few,  have  seen 
well,  and  that  we,  the  many,  have  always 
been  fooled;  that  we  have  never  known 
how  to  discover  the  fraud?  Is  it  simply 
your  conviction?  Then,  our  conviction 
is  worth  at  least  as  much  as  yours,  with 
the  difference  to  our  advantage  that  from 
our  written  reports,  results  the  evidence 
that  our  observations  were  made  under 
the  best  experimental  conditions  that  can 
be  imagined,  and  with  another  which 
consists  in  the  greater  number  of  our  ob- 
servations.' " 


190        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

''These  people  do  nothing  but  repeat, 
^All  is  fraud  and  trickery';  but  invited 
to  say  why  they  have  come  to  such  con- 
clusions, to  tell  what  measures  they  have 
taken  to  discover  fraud,  and  how  the 
medium  has  tricked  them,  behold!  We 
are  no  farther  advanced,  and  we  hear 
them  repeat  the  customary  foolishness, 
that  they  had  a  net  intuition  of  the  fraud, 
even  though  they  cannot  explain  exactly 
what  measures  the  medium  took  to  com- 
mit fraud;  even  as  they  do  not  know  the 
arts  of  the  prestidigitateurs  of  which, 
nevertheless,  they  have  not  the  least 
doubt. 

That  the  medium  skillfully  got  her 
hands  away  from  the  custodians  and 
worked  with  incredible  skill  and  rapid- 
ity. Then  those  in  charge  of  her  hands, 
and  all  the  others  present  at  the  sitting 
must  have  been  in  a  dream  to  such  an  ex- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        IQl 

tent  that  they  were  unconscious  of  every- 
thing. That  the  medium  has  mechanism 
hidden  under  her  clothing;  that  she  lifts 
up  the  table,  propping  up  one  leg  of  this 
by  placing  her  own  foot  under  it  and  mak- 
ing it  rise  with  her  hands,  arms,  etc. 

These  are  things  which  might  have 
been  said  some  twenty  or  thirty  years 
ago;  not  now,  that  observations  of  medi- 
umistic  phenomena  are  many  times 
multiplied  and  refined. 

But,  how  could  she  release  her  hands 
if  they  were,  without  interruption,  in 
contact  with  mine?  Release  the  other 
hand  which  is  not  in  contact  with  mine, 
and  of  which  I  can  know  nothing.  But 
admitted  even  this,  how  would  it  be  pos- 
sible for  the  medium  to  move  objects, 
situated  on  the  side  where  I  am,  for  ex- 
ample, upon  the  chair  upon  which  I  am 
seated  and  where  the  other  hand  abso- 


192        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

lutely  could  not  reach?  And  then  why 
ought  I  not  to  see  the  arm  or  operating 
hand  of  the  medium,  while  I  can  dis- 
tinctly see  the  arms  and  hands  of  all  the 
others  present,  even  those  who  are  far- 
thest away  from  me?  Eusapia's  arms 
are  not  diaphanous.  When  they  move, 
I  see  them,  I  follow  them  with  my  look. 
I  see  her  hands  that  touch  the  curtain, 
that  touch  her  head  and  my  own.  Why 
should  I  not  also  see  them  when  they  bear 
a  bottle  or  a  glass  upon  the  table  and 
when  they  are  insinuated  into  the  cabinet? 
Work  with  the  legs  and  with  the  feet! 
But  how,  when  her  legs  are  stretched 
under  my  knees  and  her  feet  are  propped 
against  Jona's  knees,  or  are  held  by 
Scarpa  under  the  table?  How  can  these 
feet  bring  out  of  the  cabinet  a  table  or 
a    chair?     How    does    Eusapia,    poor, 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        193 

small  and  ill,  drag  along  the  floor  for 
30  or  40  centimeters  my  body,  which 
weighs  90  kilograms,  with  the  chair  upon 
which  I  am  seated,  making  use  in  every 
case  of  only  one  arm,  the  left,  because 
she  would  not  have  been  able  in  any  way 
to  make  her  right  hand  reach  to  the  back 
of  my  chair? 

Very  rapid  movements,  so  that  we 
could  not  notice  them!  But  some  of  the 
phenomena  lasted  minutes  entire,  and 
our  eyes  were  fixed  upon  the  moving  ob- 
ject. How  is  it  possible  to  admit  that 
no  one  noticed  Eusapia's  arm,  if  it 
moved,  as  it  went  from  the  object  moved 
to  the  hands  of  the  custodians  and  vice 
versa? 

Hidden  mechanism?  But  where  and 
what  kind?  Scarpa  and  I  had  held  our 
right  arm  around  Eusapia's  back  for  a 


194        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

long  time,  while  behind  her  back,  in  the 
mediumistic  cabinet,  was  taking  place, 
this  or  that  phenomena. 

We  have  not  seen  anything  nor  felt 
anything.  We  have  seen  the  table  be- 
tween us  rise  a  half  meter  from  the  floor 
without  anyone  touching  it.  Where  are 
the  props?  Paladino  was  standing  up 
with  us  with  her  hands  in  the  chain. 
Were  we  blind? 

Dreaming?  But  we  did  nothing  but 
whisper,  even  too  much ;  we  laughed,  we 
spoke  and  joked  with  Galeotti ;  we  spoke 
with  Eusapia.  We  got  up ;  we  sat  down 
again,  etc.  Are  these  conditions  under 
which  phenomena  take  place — the  phe- 
nomena of  illusion  and  hallucination? 
He  errs,  who,  never  having  assisted  at  a 
spiritualistic  sitting,  has  been  led  to  be- 
lieve that  everybody  is  motionless,  silent 
and  astounded,  as  if  "the  dream  incubus 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        195 

were  upon  them."  Galeotti  says  that 
spiritualistic  sittings  are  the  most  divert- 
ing things  in  the  world,  and  he  is  right. 

And,  besides,  mediumistic  phenomena 
are  not  of  one  kind  only;  they  are  not 
exclusively  phenomena  of  movement. 
If,  for  the  first,  there  may  be  doubt  as 
to  trickery,  for  the  other  kind  there  can 
be  no  doubt.  How  could  the  medium 
produce  that  shining  flame  which  seems 
to  rise  from  her  head,  and  then  is  seen 
moving  slowly  through  space  and  lasts 
long  enough  to  be  seen  by  all,  in  what- 
ever position  they  may  find  themselves? 
And  those  apparitions  of  fists  and  of  co- 
lossal hands  or  heads  at  such  a  height 
that  not  even  the  tallest  of  us  could  touch 
them.  And  another  phenomenon  abso- 
lutely excludes  the  idea  of  fraud,  not- 
withstanding that  this  may  be  of  ordinary 
movement.     That  is  the  synchronism  of 


196        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

the  mediumistic  phenomena  with  the 
muscular  movements  of  the  medium;  a 
synchronism  upon  which  I  have  re- 
peatedly insisted  in  this  article,  and  that 
Mr.  B.  assures  me  that  Signor  DeRochas 
has  already  noted  in  his  book,  before 
Barzini  took  notice  of  it.  Of  this  syn- 
chronism of  movement,  we  believe  we 
have  succeeded  in  giving  a  graphic  and 
irrefragable  demonstration  in  regard  to 
the  beatings  of  the  two  electric  keys ;  but 
this  was  proven  by  us  in  many  other 
movements  that  could  not  be  registered 
skillfully.  When  Scarpa  had  Paladino's 
feet  in  his  hands,  he  always  felt  her  legs 
move  in  time  with  the  movements  made 
by  the  table  or  chair. 

Often  Eusapia  has  her  two  hands  in 
chain  with  the  two  custodians.  Not 
upon  the  table,  but  upon  her  hips,  and 
then  her  fingers   are  felt  in  continuous 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        197 

movement,  while  from  the  cabinet  the 
telegraph  key  is  heard  to  tick,  the  liquid 
of  one  bottle  is  emptied  into  another,  or 
some  object  is  taken  and  brought  outside. 
Now,  when  I  experience  simultaneously 
tactile  sensation  upon  my  hand,  and 
acoustic  or  visible  sensation  at  a  distance, 
how  can  there  be  any  doubt  in  my  mind 
that  the  distant  phenomena  are  operated 
by  the  same  fingers  that  I  feel  in  my 
hand.  Not  only  fraud,  but  illusion  and 
hallucination  even  on  my  part,  can  be 
excluded  in  such  cases  absolutely.  Some- 
times it  pleases  Eusapia  to  release  one  of 
her  hands  from  mine  and  I  do  not  oppose 
it.  She  raises  it  and  touches,  for  ex- 
ample, the  curtains,  but  I  follow  it  with 
my  glance.  I  do  not  lose  it  for  one  in- 
stant from  my  view,  and  I  see  that  it 
never  penetrates  in  the  cabinet  and  never 
goes  beyond  the  limits  of  the  curtains. 


198       Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

If,  at  the  same  time,  in  the  cabinet,  a 
telegraph  key  is  touched,  or  I  feel  a 
touch  on  my  breast  or  my  ankle  bone,  or 
if  a  hand  appears  a  long  distance  away 
from  me  and  from  Paladino,  how  can  I 
believe  that  the  hand  which  I  see  in- 
cessantly is  the  same  that  touches  me, 
that  closes  the  key  or  appears  at  a  dis- 
tance? 

In  our  sittings  there  was  neither  fraud 
nor  trickery.  That  I  can  affirm  with  se- 
curity, solemnly,  in  the  name  of  all  the 
others  present.  Different  by  the  order 
of  the  studies  that  they  cultivated,  by  tem- 
perament (what  greater  difference  could 
there  be  in  temperament  than  between 
Lombardi  and  Scarpa;  Jona  and  Gale- 
otti,  Galeotti  and  me)  ?  Because  of  the 
region  in  which  we  had  been  born  (there 
were  representatives  from  Venice,  from 
Piedmont,  from  Tuscany,  from  Umbria, 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        IQQ 

from  the  Abruzzi  and  from  the  Puglie; 
not  one  Neapolitan)  and  by  reason  of 
age.  And  all  of  us  are  of  accord  in  the 
conviction  that  the  phenomena  observed 
by  us  were  never  produced  by  fraudulent 
means,  but  were  real  phenomena." 

ZUCCHARINI   PHENOMENA 

Equally  startling  in  some  respects  have 
been  the  recent  experiments  in  levitation 
with  Zuccharini.  Employed  in  a  muni- 
cipal office,  Zuccharini  was  unaware  of 
his  psychic  powers  until  out  of  curiosity 
he  went  as  a  spectator  to  a  seance.  He 
fell  into  a  trance  and  manifested  various 
phenomena. 

Only  a  mere  fact  or  two  can  be  noted 
here  of  the  multifarious  phenomena  ob- 
served during  nine  sittings  in  Milan  by 
Murani,  Patrizi,  Bianchi,  and  others. 
At  one  of  the  sittings,  after  his  falling 


200        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

,u. .  into  a  trance,  movements  of  the  table  and 
the  appearance  of  luminous  phenomena 

''"^^  were  observed  as  usual.  Then  Zuccha- 
rini  (he  weighs  147  pounds)  was  uplifted 
by  an  invisible  force  on  to  the  table.  He 
rose  in  the  air  gradually,  ''and,"  Murani 
reports,  ''the  medium's  body  remained 
poised  in  space  for  a  period  of  from  ten 
to  twelve  seconds."  This  levitation  was 
afterward  repeated  many  times. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  PIPER  HODGSON-CONTROL 

THE  following  extracts  from  the  re- 
port of  Professor  William  James 
on  Mrs.  Piper's  Hodgson-Control  are 
taken  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  So- 
ciety for  Psychical  Research  published 
in  June,  1909.  They  are  inserted  to  give 
the  reader  an  idea  of  some  of  the  start- 
ling communications  received  through 
Mrs.  Piper  and  how  they  are  regarded 
by  one  of  the  most  conservative  investi- 
gators. 

''Miss  M.  Bergman,  [pseudonym],  had 
been  in  previous  years  an  excellent  sitter, 
and  was  known  by  name  to  Mrs.  Piper. 
She  dwelt  in  another  state,  and  her  social 

201 


202       Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

connections  were  not  in  Massachusetts. 
At  her  first  visit,  December  31st,  1907, 
the  communications  were  in  writing  and 
she  had  much  difficulty  in  deciphering 
them.  At  the  second  sitting,  January 
I  St,  1908,  the  voice  was  used  and  things 
ran  much  more  smoothly. 

At  the  first  sitting  R.  H.  quickly  ap- 
peared, spoke  of  having  seen  two  brothers 
of  the  sitter  in  the  spirit- wo  rid  (names 
known  to  trance-personalities,  and  non- 
evidential),  made  a  wrong  statement 
about  Christmas  at  the  cemetery,  and 
then,  being  asked  to  recall  his  meetings 
with  Miss  Bergman  on  earth,  said: 

I  will.  Do  you  remember  one  even- 
ing when  I  came  to  the  hotel 
where  you  were  staying  and  I  sat 
and  told  you  of  my  experiences  till 
It  got  very  late  and  I  asked  you 
if  you  would  not  [Illegible]  I  told 
you  so  very  many  jokes,  you  and 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        203 

Miss  Pope  were  convulsed  with 
laughter  over  it.  [Correct,  Ho- 
tel Bellevue,  Boston,  March, 
1905.— M.  B.] 

After  a  while,  Hodgson  reappears,  say- 
ing: 

Do   you   remember  my  telling  you 
about  my  German  friends? 
Miss  B.  No. 

Perhaps  Miss  Pope  remembers. 

[I  found  later  that  Miss  Pope  well 
remembered  Dr.  Hodgson's  tell- 
ing about  his  "German  friends" 
and  that  it  was  that  which  "con- 
vulsed us  with  laughter"  the  even- 
ing he  had  stayed  so  late  when 
calling  at  our  hotel.  At  this 
point  I  had  become  so  discour- 
aged by  the  great  difficulty  of 
reading  the  writing  and  the  con- 
fusion in  making  things  clear  that 
I  felt  very  indifferent  and  inert  in 
mind.— M.  B.] 

Bosh. 


204>        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Miss  B.  What  do  you  mean  by  that? 

You  understand  well. 
MissB.  Bosh? 

Yes,  I  say  bosh.    BOSH  BOSH 
Miss  B.  What  do  you  mean  by  that? 

Oh  I  say  it  is  all  bosh. 
Miss  B.  What  is  bosh? 

Why  the  way  you  understand.     It 
is  simply  awful. 
Miss  B.  That  sounds  like  you,  Dr.  Hodgson. 

I  could  shake  you. 
Miss  B.  How  can  I  do  better? 

Put   all  your  wits  to   it,   you   have 
plenty  of  them. 
Miss  B.  I  will  do  my  best.     Go  on. 

Do.     Do  you  remember  I  used  to 
chaff  you. 
Miss  B.  Indeed  I  do. 

Well  I  am  still  chaffing  you  a  bit  just 
for  recognition. 
Miss  B.  It  helps. 

Amen.     Now  you  are  waking  up  a 
bit. 
Miss  B.  I  am. 

Capital.     So  am  I.     Don't  you  re- 
member I  told  you  I  would  show 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        205 

you  how  to  manage  if  I  ever  came 
over  before  you  did. 
Miss  B.  Indeed    I    do.      [Sitter    had    often 
heard  Dr.  Hodgson  say  this.]^ 
Well  now  I  am  trying  to  show  you. 
I  used  to  scold  you  right  and  left 
and  I  shall  have  to  keep  it  up,  I 
think,  unless  you  do  better. 
Miss  B.  I  deserve  it. 

If  you  do  not  who  does? 
Miss  B.  You  are  your  old  self. 

Oh  I  am  the    [two  words  not  de- 
ciphered]   I  was.     You'll  find  it 
out  before  I  finish. 
Miss  B.  Have  you  a  message  for  Theo  [Miss 
Theodate  Pope]  ? 
Yes  indeed  give  her  my  love  and  tell 
her  I  am  not  going  to  forsake  her. 
I  do  not  think  she  has  been  keep- 
ing straight  to  the  mark. 
Miss  B.  What  do  you  mean  by  that? 

I  think  she  has  been  getting  a  little 
mixed  up  in  her  thoughts  and 
ideas  of  us  over  here.     I  am  the 

1  The  bracketed  comments  in  the  third  person  are  by 
Miss  Bergman  herself. 


206        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

same  old  sixpence  and  I  wish  she 
were  the  same.  I  want  to  see  her 
very  much. 
["Theo"  had  had  no  sitting  for  a 
long  time,  her  interest  being  les- 
sened by  the  circumstance  that 
records  of  several  sittings  had  not 
been  kept  systematically,  as  before 
Dr.  Hodgson's  death.  At  this 
point  the  hand  wrote  comments 
relating  to  circumstances  which 
had  arisen  In  Theo's  life  since  Dr. 
Hodgson's  death.  These  com- 
ments were  singularly  appropri- 
ate.—M.  B.] 

At  the  second  sitting,  when  R.  H.  ap- 
peared, the  voice  began  speaking  very 
rapidly  and  heartily. 

Well,  well,  well,  this  is  Miss  Berg- 
man ;  hullo !  I  felt  as  though  I 
could  shake  you  yesterday. 
Miss  B.  Well,  I  was  pretty  stupid.  I  think 
we  can  do  better  to-day.  Please 
repeat  some  of  the  messages  you 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life       207 

wrote  and  left  sealed  to  be  opened 
after  your  death. 

One  message  I  gave  to  Will.     If  I 
remember  correctly  it  was  "there 
Is  no  death." 
MissB.  Who  is  Will? 

Will  James. 
Miss  B.  Are  you  sure  you  are  now  giving  this 
quotation  correctly  as  you  wrote 
it? 

Of  course  I  am.  [There  followed 
an  outburst  spoken  so  rapidly  that 
the  sitter  could  not  get  it  down, 
declaring  that  the  speaker  had  not 
lost  his  memory  any  more  than 
had  the  sitter,  etc.] 
Miss  B.  Did  you  leave  other  messages? 

Yes,  another.  "Out  of  life" — how 
did  I  quote  It — "Out  of  life,  into 
life  eternal."  ...  I  know 
positively  what  I  wrote.  I  have 
promised  Piddington  to  repeat 
through  Mrs.  Verrall  all  the  mes- 
sages that  I  give  through  this 
light.  Every  message  given  at 
this     light     must     be     repeated 


208        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

through  Mrs.  Verrall  before  any 
one  opens  any  of  my  sealed  mes- 
sages. Mrs.  Verrall  is  the  clear- 
est light  except  this  which  I  have 
found.  Moreover  she  has  a 
beautiful  character  and  is  per- 
fectly honest.  That  is  saying  a 
great  deal.  [The  reader  will  no- 
tice that  Mrs.  Piper  had  been  in 
England  and  returned,  at  the  date 
of  the  sittings  with  Miss  Berg- 
man.— W.  J.]  Do  you  remem- 
ber my  description  of  luminiferous 
ether,  and  of  my  conception  of 
what  this  life  was  like?  I  have 
found  it  was  not  an  erroneous 
imagination. 
[The  above  words  were  spoken  with 
great  animation  and  interest. 
The  sitter,  although  remembering 
Dr.  Hodgson's  '  description  of 
^'luminiferous  ether,"  felt  that  she 
was  not  qualified  to  enter  into  a 
conversation  of  this  character  and 
began  to  say  something  else. 
The  voice  interrupted  her:] 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life       ^09 

It  is  never  the  way  to  get  the  best 
results  by  peppering  with  ques- 
tions. Intelligences  come  with 
minds  filled  and  questions  often 
put  everything  out  of  their 
thought.  I  am  now  going  to 
give  you  a  test.  Mention  it  to  no 
one,  not  even  to  Theo.  Write 
down,  seal  and  give  to  Alice  or  to 
William. 

[Directions  here  followed  regarding 
such  a  test.  After  these  direc- 
tions the  voice  spontaneously  took 
up  another  subject.] 

Your  school  was — [correct  name 
given],  was  it  not?  [Already 
known  to  controls,  but  probably 
not  to  Mrs.  Piper  when  awake.] 
You  are  changing,  your  brother 
tells  me,  and  he  is  very  pleased. 
He  thinks  you  are  going  to 
broaden  out  and  do  a  better  work. 
He  is  very  glad.  Do  not  under- 
take too  much.  Make  use  of  as- 
sistance in  the  work. 


210       Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Miss  B.  Where  were  your  lodgings  in  Bos- 
ton? 
Well,  now,  that  has  brought  back  to 
my  mind  Boston — .  Certainly — 
there  were  some  doctors  in  my 
building — George  Street — no — 
not  George — Charles  Street — I — • 
I  believe.  Now  let  me  see, 
Charles  Street.  Up  three  flights, 
I  think  I  was  on  the  top.  [Cor- 
rect, but  known  to  Mrs.  Piper. — 
W.J.] 

Miss  B.  Do  you  know  when  I  was  at  your 
lodgings? 
You  were  there?     Didn't  we  have 
tea  together?      [False.] 

Miss  B.  No. 

Did  you  come  and  read  papers? 

Miss  B.  No. 

Did  you  go  there  after  I  passed  out? 

Miss  B.  Yes.  I  went  to  get  some  articles  be- 
longing to  you,  and  did  them  up 
in  rubber  cloth. 
Capital,  that  Is  good.  Lodge  and 
Piddington  consider  It  good  when 
I   can't  remember  what   did  not 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        211 

happen!     What  was  the  name  of 
that  girl  who  used  to  work  in  my 
office? 
Miss  B.  I  do  not  remember. 

Edmund — Edwards — I  am  thinking 
of  her  going  to  my  rooms  to  read 
papers.  [Her  name  was  Ed- 
munds, known  to  the  medium. — 

w.  J.] 

Now  I  want  to  ask  you  if  you  re- 
member Australia,  remember  my 
riding  horseback?  Remember  my 
telling  you  of  riding  through  the 
park  In  the  early  morning  with 
the  dew  on  the  grass  and  how 
beautiful  It  was. 
Miss  B.  Yes,  yes,  I  remember  that  very  well. 
That  is  fine. 

I  am  Richard  Hodgson.  /  am  he. 
I  am  telling  you  what  I  remember. 
I  told  you,  too,  about  my  preach- 
ing. I  believed  I  was  In  the 
wrong  and  I  stopped.  It  hurt 
some  of  my  people  to  have  me. 
Miss  B.  Tell  me  about  your  riding. 

I    remember   telling  you   about  my 


212        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

dismounting      and      sitting      and 
drinking    in    the    beauty    of    the 
morning. 
Miss  B.  Tell  me  any  experiences  that  befell 
you  while  riding. 

Oh,  I  told  you  about  the  experience 
with  the  fiery  horse.  You  remem- 
ber he  dismounted  me.  It  was 
the  first  experience  I  had  in  see- 
ing stars.  I  lost  consciousness. 
I  experienced  passing  into  this 
life.  I  remember  my  being  un- 
conscious and  recovering  con- 
sciousness. I  remember  telling 
you  this  at  the  hotel. 

[Sitter's  mind  was  filled  here  with 
recollections  of  how  Dr.  Hodg- 
son had  once  told  her  all  this  when 
talking  with  her  at  the  Parker 
House  in  Boston,  in  1904.  He 
had  related  just  this  experience 
and  had  said  that  when  he  recov- 
ered consciousness  after  being  un- 
conscious for  some  time,  it  seemed 
to  him  he  had  been  In  a  spiritual 
universe.     He    also    told   her   at 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        213 

that  time  of  his  having  given  tes- 
timony in  Methodist  meeting  as  a 
a  lad  in  his  teens,  and  afterwards 
giving  it  up  because  he  became 
skeptical  in  matters  of  faith. 
This,  he  said,  had  troubled  some 
of  his  kinsfolk.— M.  B.] 
Miss  B.  What  did  you  use  to  order  for  lunch- 
eon when  you  lunched  with  us  at 
the  hotel? 

Oh,  I  have  forgotten  all  about  eating 
— m — m — I  was  very  fond  of 
protose. 

[The  sitter  did  not  have  "protose" 
in  mind,  but  remembers  Dr. 
Hodgson  sometimes  asking  the 
waiter  for  one  of  the  prepared 
breakfast  foods,  but  does  not  re- 
call its  name. — M.  B.] 

When  I  found  the  light  it  looked 
like  a  tremendous  window,  open 
window.  The  canopy — do  you 
remember  how  they  used  to  talk 
about  the  canopy?  It  is  an  ethe- 
real veil.  If  your  spiritual  eyes 
were  open  you  could  see  through 


214       Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

this  veil  and  see  me  here  talking 
to  you  perfectly. 

[The  sitter  did  not  care  to  talk 
about  this,  although  she  remem- 
bered perfectly  Dr.  Hodgson's 
telling  her  "how  they  talked 
about  the  canopy,"  so  she  asked  a 
question,  referring  to  the  intimate 
personal  affairs  of  one  of  her 
friends.  The  replies  showed  a 
strange  knowledge  of  the  circum- 
stances known  only  to  the  sitter 
and  her  friend,  and  were  entirely 
a  propos.  The  voice  then  went 
on  speaking,  and  burst  out  with 
what  follows,  in  a  tone  of  mingled 
indignation  and  amusement:] 

Will  thinks  I  ought  to  walk  into  the 
room  bodily  and  shake  hands  with 
him.  I  heard  him  say  "Hodgson 
isn't  so  much  of  a  power  on  the 
other  side."  What  does  he  think 
a  man  in  the  ethereal  body  is  go- 
ing to  do  with  a  man  in  the  phys- 
ical body?     [Seems  to  show  some 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        215 

supernormal  knowledge  of  the 
state  of  my  mind. — W.  J.] 
Miss  B.  To  whom  did  you  speak  first  from 
that  world? 
Theodate,  yes,  Theodate,  she  was 
the  one  to  whom  I  first  spoke. 
[Correct.] 
[The  sitter  now  asked  to  talk  with 
another  spirit,  and  reply  was  made 
that  R.  H.  would  continue  talk- 
ing until  he  came.  R.  H.  did 
this  by  again  referring  to  the  ac- 
cident in  the  park.  He  spoke  of 
being  seated  when  he  first  told  us 
of  the  incident,  and  of  getting  up 
and  walking  around  the  room  as 
he  talked.  He  said  it  chanced 
that  this  incident  had  been  told  to 
few  people,  and  again  dwelt  upon 
having  seen  stars  after  falling, 
having  been  unconscious,  having 
had  visions  while  unconscious,  as 
if  the  spirit  had  left  the  body  and 
passed  into  another  world.  All 
of  this  corresponded  exactly  with 
fact.     Dr.    Hodgson    had    com- 


216        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

menced  the  story  seated,  and  had 
risen  and  walked  about  as  he 
talked.— M.  B.] 

The  accurate  knowledge  thus  displayed 
of  R,  H.'s  conversations  at  the  hotels  in 
Boston  where  the  ladies  stayed,  seems  to 
me  one  of  the  most  evidential  items  in  the 
whole  series.  It  is  improbable  that  such 
unimportant  conversations  should  have 
been  reported  by  the  living  R.  H.  to  Mrs. 
Piper,  either  awake  or  when  in  trance 
with  other  sitters;  and  to  my  mind  the 
only  plausible  explanation  is  supernor- 
mal. Either  it  spells  ^^spirit-return,"  or 
telephatic  reading  of  the  sitter's  mind  by 
the  medium  in  trance. 

I  think  that  by  this  time  the  reader  has 
enough  documentary  material  to  gain  an 
adequate  impression  of  the  case.  Addi- 
tional citations  of  sittings  would  intro- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        217 

duce  no  new  factors  of  solution.  The  en- 
tire lot  of  reports,  read  verbatim,  would, 
it  is  true,  give  a  greater  relative  impres- 
sion of  hesitation,  repetition,  and  bog- 
gling generally;  and  the  "rigorously 
scientific"  mind  would  of  course  rejoice 
to  find  its  own  explanatory  category, 
"Bosh,"  greatly  confirmed  thereby.  But 
the  more  serious  critic  of  the  records  will 
hold  his  judgment  in  suspense;  or,  if  he 
inclines  to  the  spiritistic  solution,  it  will 
be  because  an  acquaintance  with  the  phe- 
nomenon on  a  much  larger  scale  has 
altered  the  balance  of  presumptions  in  his 
mind,  and  because  spirit-return  has  come 
to  seem  no  unpermissible  thing  to  his 
sense  of  the  natural  dramatic  probabili- 
ties. 

Before  indulging  in  some  final  reflec- 
tions of  my  own  on  Nature's  possibilities, 
I  will  cite  a  few  additional  evidential 


218        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

points.     I  will  print  them  in  no  order, 
numbering  them  as  they  occur. 

(i)  First  of  all,  several  instances  of 
knowledge  that  was  veridical  and  seemed 
unquestionably  supernormal.  These 
were  confidential  remarks,  some  of  which 
naturally  won't  bear  quotation.  One  of 
them,  plausible  after  the  fact,  could 
hardly  have  been  thought  of  by  any  one 
before  it.  Another  would,  I  think, 
hardly  have  been  constructed  by  Mrs. 
Piper.  A  third  was  to  the  effect  that  R. 
H.  thought  now  differently  about  a  cer- 
tain lady — she  was  less  "selfish"  than  Tie 
had  called  her  in  a  certain  private  con 
versation  of  which  he  reminded  the  sit- 
ter. 

(2)  Again,  there  was  intense  solici- 
tude shown  about  keeping  the  records  of 
a  certain  former  sitter  from  publicity. 
It  sounded  very  natural  and  Hodgsonian, 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        219 

but  the  trance-Mrs.  Piper  might  also  have 
deemed  it  necessary. 

(3)  The  following  incident  belongs  to 
my  wife's  and  Miss  Putnam's  sitting  of 
June  I2th,  1906: — Mrs.  J.  said:  "Do 
you  remember  what  happened  in  our  li- 
brary one  night  when  you  were  arguing 
with  Margie  [Mrs.  J.'s  sister]?" — "I  had 
hardly  said  ^remember',"  she  notes,  ''in 
asking  this  question,  when  the  medium's 
arm  was  stretched  out  and  the  fist  shaken 
threateningly,"  then  these  words  came: 

R.  H.  Yes,  I  did  this  in  her  face.  I 
couldn't  help  it.  She  was  so  im- 
possible to  move.  It  was  wrong 
of  me,  but  I  couldn't  help  it. 

[I  myself  well  remember  this  fist- 
shaking  incident,  and  how  we  others 
laughed  over  it  after  Hodgson  had  taken 
his  leave.  What  had  made  him  so  angry 
was  my  sister-in-law's  defence  of  some 


220        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

slate-writing  she  had  seen  in  California. 

-w.  J.] 

(4)  At  a  written  sitting  at  which  I  was 
present  (July  29th,  1907)  the  following 
came : 

You  seem  to  think  I  have  lost  my 
equilibrium.     Nothing     of     the 
sort. 
W.  J.       YouVe  lost  your  handwriting,  gone 
from  bad  to  worse. 

I  never  had  any  to  lose. 
Mrs.  M.  It  was  a  perfectly  beautiful  hand- 
writing [ironical]. 

Ahem !  Ahem !  William,  do  you 
remember  my  writing  you  a  long 
letter  once  when  you  were  ill? 
You  had  to  get  Margaret  [my 
daughter — ^W.  J.]  tO'  help  you 
read  it  and  you  wrote  me  it 
was  detestable  writing  and  you 
hoped  I  would  try  and  write 
plainer  to  a  friend  who  was  ill, 
next  time.  How  I  laughed  over 
that,  but  I  was  really  sorry  to 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        221 

make  you  wade  through  it.  Ask 
Margaret  if  she  remembers  it. 
[Perfectly — it  was  in  London. — 
M.  M.  J.] 

(5)  Another  item  which  seems  to 
mean  either  telepathy  or  survival  of  R. 
H.,  came  out  at  a  sitting  of  Miss  Pope's 
on  Feb.  7th,  1906. 

I  am  not  going  to  make  a  botch  of 
anything  if  I  can  help  it.  Not 
I.  Do  you  remember  my  telling 
you  what  I  would  do  if  I  got 
over  here  first. 
Miss  P.    You  said  several  things  about  it. 

I  said  if  I  couldn't  do  better  than 
some  of  them  I  was  mistaken. 
I  said  some  of  them  were  awful. 
Remember?  And  if  I  based  my 
opinion  on  what  they  tried  to 
give  I  should  expect  to  be  said  to 
be  in  the  trick.  Rememberf 
Miss  P.    Of  course  I  remember. 

Do  you  remember  a  story  I  told 
you  about  my  old  friend  Sidg- 


222        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

wick?  Don't  you  remember 
how  I  Imitated  him? 
Miss  P.  Yes,  what  word  did  you  say  about 
SIdgwIck?  [I  had  not  decipher- 
ed the  word  "Imitated." — T.  P.] 
If  I  believed  In  It  they  would  say  I 

was  In  the  trick. 
[Still    not    understanding,    T.    P. 
said:] 
Miss  P.    What  about  SIdgwIck? 

I  Imitated  him. 
Miss  P.    What  did  you  do? 

I  said  s-s-s-should-be  i-n  th-e  t-r-i-c-k. 
Miss  P.    I  remember  perfectly,  that's  fine. 

No  one  living  could  know  this  but 

yourself  and  Mary  Bergman. 
[It  was  most  Interesting  to  see  the 
hand  write  these  words  to  Imitate 
stuttering,  and  then  for  the  first 
time  It  flashed  over  me  what  he 
had  some  time  ago  told  Mary 
and  me  about  SIdgwIck,  imitat- 
ing at  the  same  time  SIdgwick's 
stammer:  "H-Hodgson,  If  you 
b-b-belleve  in  it,  you'll  b-be  said 
to  be  In  the  t-trlck."     I  cannot 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life       223 

quote  the  exact  words,  but  this  is 
very  nearly  right. 
Sidgwick  referred  to  Hodgson's 
belief  that  he  was  actually  com- 
municating, through  Mrs.  Piper, 
with  spirits.  He  meant  that 
people  not  only  would  not  be- 
lieve what  Hodgson  gave  as  evi- 
dence, but  would  think  he  was  in 
collusion  with  Mrs.  Piper. — 
T.  P.] 

(6)  At  a  sitting  of  Miss  Pope's  and 
mine,  Oct.  24th,  1906,  R.  H.  said  of  Miss 
P. — "She  goes  on  and  puts  on  bays  and 
piazzas,  changes  her  piazzas,  her  house, 
makes  it  all  over  again."  As  this  w^as 
literally  true,  and  as  no  one  in  Boston 
could  well  have  known  about  it,  it  seemed 
like  mind-reading.  [R.  H.'s  saying  is 
possibly  explained,  however,  by  a  previ- 
ous sitting  (April  i6th)  of  Miss  Pope's, 
in  which  another  of  Mrs.  Piper's  controls 


224        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

had  already  of  his  own  accord  made  the 
same  veridical  remark,  so  that  the  fact 
had  got,  however  inexplicably,  into  the 
trance-consciousness,  and  could  be  used 
by  the  controls  indiscriminately.] 

(7)   On  Jan.  30,  1906,  Mrs.  M.  had  a 
sitting.     Mrs.  M.  said: 

Do  you  remember  our  last  talk,  at 
N.,  and  how,  in  coming  home  we 
talked  about  the  work? 

(R.  H.)    Yes,  yes. 

Mrs.  M.  And  I  said  If  we  had  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars — 
Buying  Billy ! ! 

Mrs.  M.  Yes,    Dick,   that  was   it — "buying 
Billy.'* 
Buying  only  Billy? 

Mrs.  M.  Oh    no^ — I    wanted    Schiller    too. 
How  well  you  remember ! 

Mrs.  M.,  before  R.  H.'s  death,  had  had 
dreams  of  extending  the  American 
Branch's  operations  by  getting  an  endow- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        225 

ment,  and  possibly  inducing  Prof.  New- 
bold  (Billy)  and  Dr.  Schiller  to  co-op- 
erate in  work.  She  naturally  regards 
this  veridical  recall,  by  the  control,  of  a 
private  conversation  she  had  had  with 
Hodgson  as  very  evidential  of  his  sur- 
vival. 

(8)  To  the  same  sitter,  on  a  later  occa- 
sion (March  5th,  1906),  the  control 
showed  veridical  knowledge  of  R.  H.'s 
pipes,  of  which  two  had  been  presents 
from  herself.  She  asks  him  at  this  sit- 
ting about  the  disposal  of  some  of  his 
effects.  He  mentions  books  and  photo- 
graphs in  a  general  way,  then  says : 

I  want  Tom  [his  brother]  to  have 

my  pipes,  all  except  any  that  my 

friends  wish. 
Mrs.  M.  Do  you  remember  any  special  ones? 
Yes,     I — the     one     you —     [The 

hand  points  to   me^   etc. — Mrs. 

M.] 


226       Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Mrs.  M.  Which? 

Meerschaum.      [I   gave   R.   H.   a 
meerschaum     pipe     some    years 
ago.— M.] 
Mrs.  M.  You  do  remember!     Give  it  to  any 
one  you  would  best  hke  to. 
.     .     .     I    want    Billy    James    to 
have    it.     Will   you    give    it   to 
him?     Do  you  remember,  etc.? 
Mrs.  M.  Do  you  remember  any  other  spe- 
cial pipe? 
You  mean  with  a  long  stem?     Cer- 
tainly.    What  about  it? 
Mrs.  M.  Can    you    recall    anything    special 
about  it? 
What?     You    mean   the    one   you 
gave  me   long   ago,   some   time 
ago,  not  the  recent  one  ? 
Mrs.  M.  The  last  one  I  gave  you. 

Last  season,  last  season,  yes. 
Mrs.  M.  a  year  or  two  ago,  I  think  it  was. 
I  recall  it  well.  You  gave  me 
what  I  call  a  briar  pipe.  [A 
number  of  years  ago  I  gave  R. 
H.  a  briar-root  pipe,  with  rather 
a  long  stem,   bound  round  the 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        227 

bowl  with  silver,  but  this  was 
not  the  one  of  which  I  was 
thinking. — M.] 

Mrs.  M.  The  one  I  mean  was  an  odd-look- 
ing pipe. 
I  know  it  well,  a  big  large  bowl. 

Mrs.  M.  Wasn't  that  the  meerschaum? 

Yes,  Billy  is  to  have  it.  The  face 
one  I  want  Tom  to  have.  I 
want  my  brother  Tom  to  have 
— face  on  it.  The  whole  thing 
was  a  face.  I  mean  the  pipe 
bowl. 
[I  had  seen  such  a  pipe,  the  whole 
thing  a  face,  at  the  Charles 
Street  rooms  a  short  time  be- 
fore. I  never  remember  seeing 
Mr.  Hodgson  use  it.  The  pipe 
of  which  I  was  thinking  was  a 
carved  Swiss  pipe  which  he  evi- 
dently does  not  remember. — 
M.] 

(9)  Among  my  own  friends  in  the 
Harvard  faculty  who  had  ^^passed  over" 
the    most    intimate    was    F.    J.    Child. 


228        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

Hodgson  during  life  had  never  met  Pro- 
fessor Child.  It  looks  to  me  like  a  su- 
pernormal reading  of  my  own  mental 
states  (for  I  had  often  said  that  the  best 
argument  I  knew  for  an  immortal  life  was 
the  existence  of  a  man  who  deserved  one 
as  well  as  Child  did)  that  a  message  to 
me  about  him  should  have  been  spon- 
taneously produced  by  the  R.  H.  control. 
I  had  assuredly  never  mentioned  C.  to 
Mrs.  Piper,  had  never  before  had  a  mes- 
sage from  his  spirit,  and  if  I  had  ex- 
pressed my  feelings  about  him  to  the 
living  R.  H.,  that  would  make  the  mat- 
ter only  more  evidential. 

The  message  through  R.  H.  came  to 
Miss  Robbins,  June  6th,  1906. 

There  is  a  man  named  Child 
passed  out  suddenly,  wants  to 
send  his  love  to  William  and  his 
wife  in  the  body. 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        229 

MissR.    Child's  wife? 

Yes,  in  the  body.  He  says  .  .  . 
I  hope  L.  will  understand  what 
I  mean.  I  [i.e,  R.  H.]  don't 
know  who  L.  is.  [L.  is  the 
Initial  of  the  Christian  name  of 
Professor    Child's   widow. — W. 

J-] 

(lo)  Miss  Putnam  had  been  consulted 
about  the  disposition  of  certain  matters 
left  undone  by  Hodgson  at  the  date  of  his 
death.  At  her  sitting,  much  later,  these 
words  came  out.  I  copy  the  record  as  it 
stands: 

R.  H.  Did  you  get  my  Christmas  present? 
[A  calendar  addressed  by  him 
to  me  before  his  death. — A.  C. 
P.]  I  heard  you  In  the  body 
say  you  didn't  want  them  sent. 
[Mr.  Hodgson  had  left  some 
Christmas  cards  addressed,  but 
unenclosed.  I  had  expressed 
unwillingness  to  mail  them  un- 
enveloped. — A.  C.  P.] 


230        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

(ii)  Mrs.  M.,  on  March  30th,  placed 
a  volume  in  manuscript  in  the  medium's 
hands.     R.  H.  immediately  wrote: 

Well,  well.     Isn't  that  the  book  I 
lent  you? 
Mrs.  M.  Yes.     You    loaned    it    to    me    at 
C . 

I  remember,  but  you  have  it  still ! 
Mrs.  M.  I  returned  it  to  you. 

Yes,  but  isn't  it  the  one  I  loaned 
you?  And  the  poems  I  used  to 
love  so  well,  I  recall.  [The 
book  contained  poems  copied  or 
composed  by  Hodgson,  and  after 
having  been  returned  to  him  ere 
he  died,  had  been  taken  from 
among  his  effects  and  brought  to 
the  sitting  by  Mrs.  M.] 

These  eleven  incidents  sound  more  like 
deliberate  truth-telling,  whoever  the 
truth-teller  be,  than  like  lucky  flukes. 
On  the  whole  they  make  on  me  the  im- 
pression of  being  supernormal.     I  con- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        231 

fess  that  I  should  at  this  moment  much 
like  to  know  (although  I  have  no  means 
of  knowing)  just  how  all  the  documents  I 
am  exhibiting  in  this  report  will  strike 
readers  who  are  either  novices  in  the 
field,  or  who  consider  the  subject  in  gen- 
eral to  be  pure  "rot"  or  "bosh."  It  seems 
to  me  not  impossible  that  a  bosh-philoso- 
pher here  or  there  may  get  a  dramatic  im- 
pression of  there  being  something  genuine 
behind  it  all.  Most  of  those  who  remain 
faithful  to  the  "bosh"-interpretation 
would,  however,  find  plenty  of  comfort 
if  they  had  the  entire  mass  of  records 
given  them  to  read.  Not  that  I  have  left 
things  out  (I  certainly  have  tried  not  to!) 
that  would,  if  printed,  discredit  the  de- 
tail of  what  I  cite,  but  I  have  left  out,  by 
not  citing  the  whole  mass  of  records,  so 
much  mere  mannerism,  so  much  repeti- 
tion, hesitation,  irrelevance,  unintelligi- 


232        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

bility,  SO  much  obvious  groping  and  fish- 
ing and  plausible  covering  up  of  false 
tracks,  so  much  false  pretension  to  power, 
and  real  obedience  to  suggestion,  that  the 
stream  of  veridicality  that  runs  through- 
out the  whole  gets  lost  as  it  were  in  a 
marsh  of  feebleness,  and  the  total  dra- 
matic effect  on  the  mind  may  be  little 
more  than  the  word  ^'humbug."  The 
really  significant  items  disappear  in  the 
total  bulk.  "Passwords,"  for  example, 
and  sealed  messages  are  given  in  abun- 
dance, but  can't  be  found.  (I  omit  these 
here,  as  some  of  them  may  prove  veridi- 
cal later.)  Preposterous  Latin  sentences 
are  written,  e.g.  "Nebus  merica  este 
fecrum" — or  what  reads  like  that  (April 
4th,  1906).  Poetry  gushes  out,  but  how 
can  one  be  sure  that  Mrs.  Piper  never 
knew  it?  The  weak  talk  of  the  Impera- 
tor-band     about     time     is     reproduced, 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        233 

as  where  R.  H.  pretends  that  he  no 
longer  knows  what  ''seven  minutes" 
mean  (May  14th,  1906).  Names  asked 
for  can't  be  given,  etc.,  etc/  All  this 
mass  of  diluting  material,  which  can't 
be  reproduced  in  abridgment,  has  its 
inevitable  dramatic  effect;  and  if  one 
tends  to  hate  the  whole  phenomena  any- 
how (as  I  confess  that  I  myself  sometimes 
do)  one's  judicial  verdict  inclines  accord- 
ingly. 

Nevertheless,  I  have  to  confess  also  that 
the  more  familiar  I  have  become  with  the 
records,  the  less  relative  significance  for 
my  mind  has  all  this  diluting  material 

1  For  instance,  on  July  2nd,  the  sitter  asks  R.  H.  to 
name  some  of  his  cronies  at  the  Tavern  Club.  Hodg- 
son gives  six  names,  only  five  of  which  belonged  to 
the  Tavern  Club,  and  those  five  w^ere  known  to  the 
controls  already.  None  of  them,  I  believe,  were  those 
asked  for,  namely,  "  names  of  the  men  he  used  to  play 
pool  with  or  go  swimming  with  at  Nantasket."  Yet,  as 
the  sitter  (Mr.  Dorr)  writes,  "He  failed  to  realize  his 
failure." 


234        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

tended  to  assume.  The  active  cause  of 
the  communications  is  on  any  hypothesis 
a  will  of  some  kind,  be  it  the  will  of  R. 
H.'s  spirit,  of  lower  supernatural  intel- 
ligences, or  of  Mrs.  Piper's  subliminal: 
and  although  some  of  the  rubbish  may  be 
deliberately  willed  (certain  hesitations, 
misspellings,  etc.,  in  the  hope  that  the  sit- 
ter may  give  a  clue,  or  certain  repetitions, 
in  order  to  gain  time)  yet  the  major  part 
of  it  is  suggestive  of  something  quite  dif- 
ferent— as  if  a  will  were  there,  but  a  will 
to  say  something  which  the  machinery 
fails  to  bring  through.  Dramatically, 
most  of  this  "bosh"  is  more  suggestive  to 
me  of  dreaminess  and  mind-wandering 
than  it  is  of  humbug.  Why  should  a 
"will  to  deceive"  prefer  to  give  incorrect 
names  so  often,  if  it  can  give  the  true  ones 
to  which  the  incorrect  ones  so  frequently 
approximate  as  to  suggest  that  they  are 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life       235 

meant?  True  names  impress  the  sitter 
vastly  more.  Why  should  it  so  multiply 
false  "passwords"  ("Zeivorn,"  for  ex- 
ample, above  p.  86)  and  stick  to  them? 
It  looks  to  me  more  like  aiming  at  some- 
thing definite,  and  failing  of  the  goal. 
Sometimes  the  control  gives  a  message  to 
a  distant  person  quite  suddenly,  as  if  for 
some  reason  a  resistance  momentarily 
gave  way  and  let  pass  a  definite  desire  to 
give  such  a  message.  Thus  on  October 
17th,  "Give  my  love  to  Carl  Putnam,"  a 
name  which  neither  Mrs.  Piper  nor  the 
sitter  knew,  and  which  popped  in  quite 
irrelevantly  to  what  preceded  or  fol- 
lowed. A  definite  will  is  also  suggested 
when  R.  H.  sends  a  message  to  James 
Putnam  about  his  "watch  stopping."  He 
sends  it  through  several  sitters  and  sticks 
to  it  in  the  face  of  final  denial,  as  if  the 
phrase    covered,    however    erroneously. 


236        Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

some  distinct  "intention  to  recall/'  which 
ought  not  to  be  renounced. 

That  a  "will  to  personate"  is  a  factor 
in  the  Piper-phenomenon,  I  fully  believe, 
and  I  believe  with  unshakable  firmness 
that  this  will  is  able  to  draw  on  super- 
normal sources  of  information.  It  can 
"tap,"  possibly  the  sitter's  memories,  pos- 
sibly those  of  distant  human  beings,  possi- 
bly some  cosmic  reservoir  in  which  the 
memories  of  earth  are  stored,  whether  in 
the  shape  of  "spirits"  or  not.  If  this 
were  the  only  will  concerned  in  the  per- 
formance, the  phenomenon  would  be 
humbug  pure  and  simple,  and  the  minds 
tapped  telephatically  in  it  would  play  an 
entirely  passive  role — that  is,  the  tele- 
pathic data  would  be  fished  out  by  the 
personating  will,  not  forced  upon  it  by 
desires  to  communicate,  acting  externally 
to  itself. 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        237 

But  it  is  possible  to  complicate  the 
hypothesis.  Extraneous  "wills  to  com- 
municate" may  contribute  to  the  results 
as  well  as  a  'Vill  to  personate,"  and  the 
two  kinds  of  will  may  be  distinct  in 
entity,  though  capable  of  helping  each 
other  out.  The  will  to  communicate,  in 
our  present  instance,  would  be,  on  the 
prima  facie  view  of  it,  the  will  of 
Hodgson's  surviving  spirit;  and  a  nat- 
ural way  of  representing  the  process 
would  be  to  suppose  the  spirit  to 
have  found  that  by  pressing,  so  to  speak, 
against  "the  light,"  it  can  make  fragmen- 
tary gleams  and  flashes  of  what  it  wishes 
to  say  mix  with  the  rubbish  of  the  trance- 
talk  on  this  side.  The  two  wills  might 
thus  strike  up  a  sort  of  partnership  and 
reinforce  each  other.  It  might  even  be 
that  the  "will  to  personate"  would  be 
comparatively  inert  unless  it  were  aroused 


2S8       Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

to  activity  by  the  other  will.  We  might 
imagine  the  relation  to  be  analogous  to 
that  of  two  physical  bodies,  from  neither 
of  which,  when  alone,  mechanical,  ther- 
mal, or  electrical  activity  can  proceed, 
but  if  the  other  body  be  present,  and  show 
a  difference  of  ^'potential,"  action  starts 
up  and  goes  on  apace. 

Conceptions  such  as  these  seem  to  con- 
nect in  schematic  form  the  various  ele- 
ments in  the  case.  Its  essential  factors 
are  done  justice  to ;  and,  by  changing  the 
relative  amounts  in  which  the  rubbish- 
making  and  the  truth-telling  wills  con- 
tribute to  the  resultant,  we  can  draw  up  a 
table  in  which  every  type  of  manifesta- 
tion, from  silly  planchet-writing  up  to 
Rector's  best  utterances,  finds  its  proper 
place.  Personally,  I  must  say  that,  al- 
though I  have  to  confess  that  no  crucial 
proof  of  the  presence  of  the  "will  to  com- 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        239 

municate"  seems  to  me  yielded  by  the 
Hodgson-control  taken  alone,  and  in  the 
sittings  to  which  I  have  had  access,  yet 
the  total  effect  in  the  way  of  dramatic 
probability  of  the  whole  mass  of  similar 
phenomena  on  my  mind,  is  to  make  me 
believe  that  a  "will  to  communicate"  is 
in  some  shape  there.  I  cannot  demon- 
strate it,  but  practically  I  am  inclined  to 
"go  in"  for  it,  to  bet  on  it  and  take  the 
risks." 


CHAPTER  X 
SUMMING  UP 

THESE  are  a  few  of  the  phenomena 
that  have  caused  science  to  revolu- 
tionize its  ideas  and  conceptions  of  the 
world  about  us.  It  is  the  belief  of  many- 
scientists  that  they  are  the  work  of  human 
intelligences  in  spirit  form.  (^Lombroso 
believed  that  these  intelligences  live  in  a 
radiant  state  invisible  and  impalpable  to 
our  senses.^  Morselli,  Foa,  and  Bottazzi 
have  not  arrived  at  that  conclusion,  al- 
though they  fully  admit  the  presence  of 
forces  unexplainable  by  any  known  laws. 
Whatever  their  difference  of  interpre- 
tation most  all  agree  in  the  essential  fact 
that  there  is  a  realm  peopled  by  intelli- 

240 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        241 

gences,  of  which  we  are  beginning  to  get 
the  first  real  glimpses.  In  view  of  this 
accord,  Lodge  seems  to  be  justified  when 
he  says  in  his  recent  work,  "Life  and 
Matter,'*  of  Haeckel,  that  "He  is,  as  it 
were,  a  surviving  voice  from  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century;  he  represents 
in  clear  and  eloquent  fashion,  opinions 
which  then  were  prevalent  among  many 
leaders  of  thought,  opinions  which  they 
themselves,  and  their  successors  still 
more,  lived  to  outgrow;  so  that  by  this 
time  Professor  HaeckePs  voice  is  as  the 
voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness — 
and  not  as  the  pioneer  of  an  advancing 
army,  but  as  the  despairing  shout  of  a 
standard  bearer,  still  bold  and  unflinch- 
ing, but  abandoned  by  his  comrades  as 
they  march  to  new  orders  in  a  fresh  and 
more  idealistic  direction." 

The  work  that  is  being  done  through 


242        Beyond  the  Borderline  op  Life 

the  investigation  of  psychic  phenomena 
in  this  country  by  the  American  Society 
for  Psychical  Research,  of  which  Dr. 
James  H.  Hyslop,  formerly  of  Columbia 
University,  is  now  the  active  head,  is  de- 
serving of  equal  support  to  that  accorded 
to  the  various  societies  and  organizations 
existing  for  the  same  purpose  as  the 
American  organization  throughout  Eu- 
rope. During  the  time  of  the  existence 
of  the  American  Branch  of  the  British 
Society  of  Psychical  Research,  of  which 
Prof.  Hodgson  was  the  American  secre- 
tary. Dr.  Hyslop  began  his  investiga- 
tions and  is  to-day,  in  connection  with 
Prof.  William  James,  formerly  of  Har- 
vard, one  of  the  very  few  American  men 
of  science  who  have  given  the  subject  the 
same  amount  of  consideration  and  care- 
ful study  that  practically  all  of  the  men 
of  science  of  Europe  are  giving. 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life        243 

As  to  the  hypotheses  scientists  hold  of 
how  intelligences  can  exist  all  about  us, 
and  yet  not  be  visible  to  us,  and  of  the 
ultimate  meaning  of  this  revelation — 
these  constitute  a  realm  of  thought  so 
vast  and  of  so  many  different  and  novel 
aspects,  that  they  cannot  be  dealt  with 
here.  They  involve  the  whole  range  of 
new  conceptions  scientists  are  forming  of 
cosmic  laws,  and  of  their  entirely 
changed  ideas  regarding  time,  space, 
matter,  and  energy. 

But  one  thing  is  clear,  the  mass  of^/^/^ 
learned  scientists  are  united  in  asserting  (^^-^^J 
that  our  souls  or  spirits  do  survive.     Fur-    ^ 
thermore,  there  is  now  the  very  closest 
connection  between  religion  in  its  real 
sense,  that  is  stripped  of  its  formulas  and 
dogmas,  and   these    truths    disclosed   of 
scientific  investigation. 


ADDENDUM 

THE  journal  of  the  Society  for  Psychi- 
cal Research  for  April,  1910,  comes  to 
hand  from  London  just  as  this  book  is  to  be 
put  on  the  press.  It  contains  a  letter  from 
Mr.  G.  B.  Dorr  describing  the  events  which 
took  place  on  the  night  of  the  so-called  ex- 
pose of  Paladino.  There  is  also  an  unsigned 
statement  by  the  man  who  grabbed  Pala- 
dino's  foot  and  another  by  Professor  Miin- 
sterberg.  Mr.  Dorr  in  describing  the  foot- 
grabbing  says:  "Suddenly  my  friend  saw  a 
foot,  no  boot  upon  it,  above  him  in  the  dim 
light,  and  took  hold  of  it. ''  In  sending  the 
original  description  by  his  friend,  Mr.  Dorr 
calls  attention  to  his  own  error  in  stat- 
ing   that    the     foot     was     seen;    the     foot 

244 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life         245 

was   not   seen  but  was  grasped  on  the  in- 
dication of  sound  alone,  as  the  dim  light  pre- 
cluded sight.     The   unsigned  report  by  the 
sitter,  who  wishes  to  avoid  notoriety,  does  not 
state  whether  a  boot  was  on  the  foot  or  not. 
It  says  only,  "  My  fingers  closed  firmly  on 
a  human   foot  in  rapid   motion  which    was 
stopped    and    arrested    by    my    hand.     My 
fingers  were  over  the  instep  and  my  hand 
closed  firmly  upon  it."     Professor  Miinster- 
berg  writes:   "The   gentleman   who   caught 
Madame  Paladino's  foot  in  the  cabinet  told 
me  a  few  minutes  afterward— that  the  foot 
was  without  a  shoe. "     Mr.  Carrington  claims 
that  the  foot  was  enclosed  in  a  high-laced 
boot.     Paladino  was  searched  that  night  quite 
thoroughly  by  two  ladies  who  were  present 
by   Mr.   Dorr's  arrangement,   but  they   did 
not  take  off  her  hoots  which  did  not  occur  to 
them  as  necessary. 

Mr.  Dorr  sums  up  as  follows:     "In  my 


246         Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

three  sittings  there  was  nothing  that  took 
place  in  connection  with  the  cabinet  that  could 
not  easily  be  explained  by  a  free  foot  or  hand, 
used  skilfully;  and  that  she  does  use  both, 
and  skilfully,  there  now  can  be  no  doubt. 
The  levitation  of  the  larger  table  in  full  light 
I  am  rather  inclined  to  believe  in  as  genuine, 
as  I  have  already  said,  partly  because  the  con- 
trol of  the  eye  as  well  as  touch  seems,  in  this 
case  to  be  so  good;  and  if  this  be  genuine,  per- 
haps other  things  are  genuine  too.  But  I 
feel  quite  sure  that  none  of  those  we  saw  were 
so,  apart  from  the  levitations  of  the  table. " 

A  committee  composed  of  Dickinson  L. 
Miller  of  Columbia  University  and  six  other 
professors  has  just  published  a  report  of  its 
findings  in  regard  to  Paladino  which  says: 
"Many  indications  were  obtained  that 
trickery  was  being  practised  on  the  sitters. 
So  far  as  these  sittings  afford  data  for  judg- 
ment the  conclusion  of  the  undersigned  is 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life         247 

unfavorable  to  the  view  that  any  super- 
natural power  in  this  case  exists"  *  *  *  *  * 
"  During  a  fourth  sitting,  at  which  the  under- 
signed were  present,  something  like  this 
control"  (i.  e.  such  control  as  makes  trickery 
absolutely  impossible)  "was  exercised  and 
while  this  was  the  case  none  of  the  so-called 
evidential  phenomena  took  place."  The 
report  is  signed  by 

C.  L.  Dana 

Professor  of  Nervous  Diseases,  Columbia 
University 
W.  Hallock 

Professor  of  Physics,  Columbia 

D.  S.  Miller 

Professor  of  Philosophy,  Columbia 
F.  Peterson 

Professor  of  Psychiatry,  Columbia 
W.  B.  Pitkin 

Lecturer  on  Philosophy,  Columbia 
A.  Trowbridge 

Professor  of  Physics,  Princeton  University 


248         Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life 

E.  B.  Wilson 

Professor  of  Biology,  Columbia 
R.  W.  Wood 

Professor     of    Physics,     Johns     Hopkins 
University 

A  long  article  by  Professor  Miller  states 
that  traps  were  laid  for  the  medium  and 
observers  were  placed,  one  in  a  bureau  with 
a  glass  in  the  front  of  a  drawer,  one  on  top 
of  the  cabinet  from  where  he  could  look 
through  a  peep-hole  into  the  cabinet  and 
another  under  the  sitters'  chairs  from  which 
the  rounds  had  been  removed.  The  claim  is 
that  Paladino  was  seen  to  free  her  hand  and 
one  foot  and  to  substitute  for  the  presence 
of  both  her  right  and  left  feet  and  hands 
that  of  one,  leaving  the  other  hand  or  foot 
free  for  action. 

They  claim  that  she  was  able  thus  to  raise 
the  table  by  putting  one  foot  under  the  table 
leg.     The    reader    of    Professor    Bottazzi's 


Beyond  the  Borderline  of  Life         249 

account  will  not  find  that  this  explains  the 
Paladino  phenomena.  Neither  does  it  ex- 
plain the  table  levitation  when  Mr.  Dorr 
and  Professor  Miinsterberg  were  present  nor 
the  many  photographs  which  have  been 
taken  showing  the  table  clear  from  the  floor. 
That  Paladino  commits  fraud  is  unde- 
niable. That  all  the  phenomena  happen- 
ing at  her  seances  are  produced  by  means 
of  fraud  is  possible;  but  that  Professor 
Miller's  report  proves  this  to  be  so  will  not 
be  accepted  by  those  who  have  read  the 
reports  of  other  investigators.  If  the  char- 
acter of  Professor  Miller  and  his  associates 
were  not  above  reproach  it  might  be  asked 
how  it  was  possible  for  the  hidden  observers 
to  detect  movements  from  a  distance  which 
those  nearby  could  not  see.  The  room  is 
usually  dark  and  at  the  time  of  the  foot- 
grabbing  incident  the  foot  could  not  be  seen. 


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Essays  in  Criticism.  Third  Series.  By  Matthew  Arnold.  The 
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